re we, finally, in the grips of a
pilot shortage? Given that the
federal government has just
added pilots to its new skilled
worker visa there’s some evidence that
we are.
I was surprised – although perhaps
in this era of eternal outrage, I
shouldn’t have been – at the strength
of the reaction to the decision. The
whole ‘foreigners taking Aussie jobs’
angle not only borders on xenophobia,
but also neatly ignores the facts that
a) foreign pilots could apply to work
in Australia under the old 457 visa
regime until as recently as last April,
and b) one of the key reasons ‘foreign’
pilots are needed is because foreign
airlines, from the Gulf to China, are
recruiting Australian pilots to work
overseas.
We can’t have it both ways, happily
accepting that Australian pilots
work overseas while complaining
that foreign pilots shouldn’t work in
Australia.
Of course those are two sides of
the same coin. The airline pilot jobs
market is an increasingly global one,
and countless Australians have headed
off to work overseas, the beneficiaries
of booming airline traffic growth and
the often insatiable demand of Middle
Eastern and Asian carriers for more
pilots to fly more aircraft to meet that
booming passenger demand.
And for good reason, with
Australian pilots highly respected
abroad for their experience and skills.
But that’s not to say the hiring of
Australian pilots doesn’t have flow-on
effects locally, where regional airlines
in particular, arguably at the bottom
of the airline pilot food chain, can
be hard hit. Whenever a Qantas or
a Virgin loses an experienced pilot
to an Emirates or an Etihad, they in

PUBLISHER

SPACE & EDUCATION EDITOR

MANAGING EDITOR

PHOTOGRAPHY & SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

NEWS EDITOR

ART DIRECTOR

Christian ‘Boo’ Boucousis
Gerard Frawley
Jordan Chong

Solange Cunin
Mark Jessop

Daniel Frawley

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

CIRCULATION MANAGER

FLYING EDITOR

PROOFREADER

Andrew McLaughlin
Owen Zupp

10 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Louise Harry

Bruce McLaughlin

turn recruit from the regional airline
operators. But often that new recruit
is an experienced regional airline
captain, denuding that airline not just
of skills but experience.
For now, Australia’s two major
airline groups, and especially Qantas,
are big enough and ugly enough to
look after themselves as far as pilot
recruitment goes.
But the regionals, and flying
schools, are hurting – hence the push
to reinstate visas for foreign pilots.
That’s likely to prove a band-aid
solution at best. After all, Australia is
now competing in a global market for
skilled and talented pilots. Australia
certainly has the lifestyle appeal, but
can we compete on wages? And how
many foreign pilots would want to
relocate to Australia when their visas
last just two years?
Ultimately, the solutions to any
pilot shortage in Australia are what
they have always been – better pay and
conditions so pilots are less tempted
to work overseas in the first place,
but also better, more affordable pilot
training pathways.
Becoming an airline pilot
has always required grit and
determination, especially for those
that have self-funded their training
and worked their way up through the
general aviation ranks.
But the trade-off to that was
that once the goal of a position with
a major airline was achieved, the
conditions and professional and
private lifestyle that that afforded
made all that effort worthwhile.
But all that is changing, the hard
grind that is the life of a low-cost
carrier pilot in particular is a far cry
from the pay and perks of an A380
pilot with a legacy carrier.
Plenty of people still want to fly,

and love to fly.
But the danger is that the airline
pilot career path is losing its glamour
and appeal. How many pilots of
today’s low-cost airlines in particular
would encourage their kids into a
flying career?
Weigh that against the challenges
and cost of self-funding a pilot career,
and Australia’s airlines will face a pilot
supply problem not just at the top,
thanks to foreign airline recruitment,
but at the bottom, if fewer kids choose
a flying career pathway.
Improving current pilot
employment conditions (not just
money, that’s important, but working
conditions and corporate cultures are
equally strong considerations) would
be a good start.
But better, more affordable pilot
training pathways (HECS for pilots,
anyone?), plus a better regulatory and
financial environment for flying schools
in Australia, would help even more.

THANK YOU GORDON AND TONY

I wanted to thank and acknowledge
Gordon Reid and Tony Arbon for their
contributions to Australian Aviation
over many, many years. The JanuaryFebruary issue marked Tony’s last
Register Update contribution, while
this issue we farewell Traffic.
Both columns have been part of
Australian Aviation for over 30 years.
That is an amazing record and I want
to thank Tony and Gordon for their
terrific and well-loved columns over
that time. The magazine, and the
broader aviation industry, has been
much the richer for them.
Personally, it has been a pleasure
and a privilege working with you both.
I will miss your contributions, as I
know many of our readers will as well.
Thank you.

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Debrief

The arrival of Virgin Australia
flight VA1105 into Brisbane
Airport from Newcastle on
Saturday February 3, the
airline’s last commercial flight
with the Embraer E-Jet. The E190
VH-ZPH is the last of Virgin’s 19
Embraer E190s to be withdrawn
from service. EMIL COOPER

News briefs from across aviation

AIRLINES

Qatar Airways will lift capacity on its
Doha-Perth service by 44 per cent
from May 1 when it upgauges its
existing daily flight to the Airbus A380
from the Boeing 777-300ER currently
serving the route.
–
The Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission said the “excessive” fees
airlines impose when passengers
cancel flights was a major cause of
complaint among the travelling public
and a potential breach of the nation’s
consumer laws. ACCC chairman
Rod Sims said the 1,400 complaints
by consumers with the ACCC about
airlines between the start of 2016
and December 2017 had “some very
consistent themes and bugbears”,
including no refund statements,
excessive fees for cancelling or
changing flights, and issues relating to
consumer guarantees.
–
Cathay Pacific says it is encouraged by the
performance of its freighter service
out of Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport
a little over a year since it established
a regular cargo link between
Queensland’s Darling Downs and

Hong Kong. While the initial rationale
for the Wellcamp route was to enable
local producers in the Darling Downs
to export their goods to Asia and
beyond via Cathay’s Hong Kong hub,
Cathay Pacific Airways regional cargo
manager for south west Pacific Nigel
Chynoweth said there had also been
demand for inbound freight.
–
Also, Cathay Pacific general manager for
South West Pacific Rakesh Raicar has
described Sydney as an ideal candidate
for the Airbus A350-1000, as the
airline plans to grow its presence in
Australia with larger aircraft. While
things were still in the planning stage,
Raicar said Sydney might see the
A350-1000, the largest variant of the
A350 family, later in 2018.
–
FlyPelican has added a third nonstop
route out of Sydney with the start
of nonstop flights to Taree which
started in late January with 19-seat
Jetstream 32 aircraft. FlyPelican also
flies from Sydney to Mudgee and
Newcastle.
–
In other FlyPelican news, the airline
has also launched a new three times

a week Newcastle-Adelaide nonstop
service which would begin on March
26 2018. The route will be flown
by Alliance Airlines on behalf of
FlyPelican with 80-seat Fokker 70s or
100-seat Fokker 100s.
–
Regional Express (Rex) is expanding its
presence in Western Australia after
being announced as the preferred
tenderer for Perth-CanarvonMonkey Mia services, a state
government regulated air route.
The route is currently operated by
Skippers Aviation, with the deed of
arrangement set to expire on July 1
2018. Details of flight schedules and
air fares would be announced after the
five-year deed of agreement has been
signed.
–
Silkair became Australia’s inaugural
Boeing 737 MAX operator in early
January, when 737 MAX 8 9V-MBC
touched down in Darwin following its
four-and-a-half-hour journey from
Singapore. It also started 737 MAX
flights between Cairns and Singapore.
–
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) plans to resume
nonstop flights between Brisbane

12 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Debrief news.indd 12

9/2/18 7:35 pm

Debrief
and Kuala Lumpur from June 6 2018
with four flights a week using Airbus
A330-300s after a near three-year
absence on the route. The flights
have been scheduled as a morning
departure from MAS’s Kuala Lumpur
hub and an overnight service from
Brisbane. It will be the only carrier
offering nonstop flights between
Brisbane and Kuala Lumpur.
–
Alliance Airlines is celebrating the
90th anniversary of the first transPacific crossing with a special
livery Fokker 100 VH-FGB and a
commemorative beer from Newstead
Brewing Co called Smithy’s FGB
available for purchase on all its flights.
Sir Charles and fellow Australian pilot
Charles Ulm, as well as radio operator
James Warner and navigator/engineer
Harry Lyon from the United States,
completed the 10-day 6,300nm Pacific
crossing from Oakland in California to
Brisbane on June 9 1928.
–
Qantas’s new Melbourne-San Francisco
flights with the Boeing 787-9 will
start on September 1 and operate four
days a week. The start of MelbourneSan Francisco flights has prompted
a reduction of the Melbourne-Los
Angeles schedule from 13 flights a
week (seven with the A380 and six
with the 787-9) to nine flights a week
(seven with the A380 and two with the
787-9).
–
In other Qantas 787 news, the airline
will let the first of its 15 Boeing 787
options lapse, CEO Alan Joyce has
told Reuters. The first of those 15
options was due to be exercised in
February, while Joyce says Qantas
would make a decision on firming up
further options into firm orders in a
“few more months”.
–
Further, Qantas’s Network Aviation
subsidiary is to operate Airbus A320
narrowbodies on intra-Western
Australia charter services, taking over
some flying currently operated by
Boeing 737-800s. The two A320s are
being sourced from the Jetstar fleet
and are expected to start flying with
Network Aviation from April.
–
Eight Qantas Airbus A380s will be
repainted in the airline’s new livery
by Emirates Engineering. Beginning
in March 2018 the aircraft will be
stripped and repainted at the Emirates
Aircraft Appearance Centre in Dubai,
which Emirates says is the largest
aircraft painting facility in the world
owned by an airline.

–
Finally, Qantas will operate 10 flights
a week between Brisbane and Los
Angeles from September 1 as its fleet
of Boeing 787-9s joins the 747-400s
currently operating the route. Under
the new schedule, the 787-9 will fly
Brisbane-Los Angeles daily, while the
747-400 will operate three services
a week. The 747-400 will then
disappear from the route completely
from December 1, with the 787-9 to
operate on Brisbane-Los Angeles 11
times a week.
–
United added a third long-haul
route from Sydney in January with
the start of daily nonstop flights
to Houston with Boeing 787-9s.
Houston is United’s largest hub and
the airline’s third destination from
Sydney alongside existing nonstop
flights to Los Angeles and San
Francisco. All flights are served with
Boeing 787 equipment. The Star
Alliance member’s vice president of
international network Patrick Quayle
said the new Houston route would
offer passengers a greater choice of
one-stop itineraries between the US
and Sydney.
–
Virgin Australia has added a new codeshare
partner for two international routes
after Australia’s International
Air Services Commission (IASC)
approved its request to have Virgin
Atlantic’s VS airline code added to
its Melbourne-Hong Kong service,
as well as its nonstop flights from
Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to
Los Angeles.
–
Singapore Airlines (SIA) regional vice
president for Southwest Pacific
Philip Goh says de-linking Canberra
with Wellington under a revamped
schedule for the two capitals would
allow both cities to “chart their own

growth path”. From May 1, SIA will
serve Canberra daily with four-class,
264-seat Boeing 777-300ERs as part
of a Singapore-Sydney-CanberraSingapore rotation and end its
Canberrra-Wellington-Canberra tag
flights. However, the Star Alliance
member and Virgin Australia partner
will maintain service to Wellington
via Melbourne instead, with a four
times weekly Singapore-MelbourneWellington rotation with 777-200s.
–
Philippine Airlines (PAL) will offer three
nonstop flights a week between
Brisbane and Manila hub from
March 27 with Airbus A340-300s,
increasing to four flights a week from
May 1. The new service replaces the
current one-stop option via Darwin
with Airbus A320s. Also, PAL said the
A340-300 would be replaced with the
A321neo later in 2018.
–
Malaysia-based low-cost carrier
AirAsia X has announced plans to
move its flights to Melbourne from
Tullamarine to Avalon Airport after
signing a 10-year agreement with
Avalon’s owners. No date has been
publicly announced for the move to
Avalon, with the airport requiring
immigration and quarantine facilities
to be put in place before flights can
begin.

Technology provider SITA says trials
of facial recognition technology at
Brisbane Airport have shown a 70
per cent reduction in processing
times for boarding and check-in.
SITA president for Asia Pacific
Sumesh Patel said the trials, which
commenced in March 2017 for
check-in and boarding and were the
first of its kind in Australia, would be
expanded to include automated bag
drop kiosks and border processing.

Silkair has begun operating
the 737 MAX to Australia, on
its flights to Darwin and Cairns
(pictured). ANDREW BELCZACKI

MARCH 2018 13

Debrief news.indd 13

9/2/18 7:35 pm

Debrief

The RAAF’s deployment of fighter jets to the
Middle East to support combat operations
against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has
concluded with the final rotation of six F/A-18F
Super Hornets returning to RAAF Base Amberley
in south-east Queensland on January 24. DEFENCE

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M

–

Marand has opened its Precision
Engineering F-35A tail manufacturing
facility at Moorabbin Airport in
Melbourne. The facility, which was
partly funded through a grant from
Defence’s New Air Combat Capability
Industry Support Program, will
support 44 new production jobs and
will manufacture vertical tails for the
F-35 program.

HELICOPTERS

The RAAF’s fourth and fifth
Lockheed Martin F-35A
Lightning IIs – A35-004 and
A35-005 – made their first
flights in mid-January .

–
The NSW Government has committed
$450,000 to investigate a runway
extension at Lord Howe Island Airport
after signing a new four-year deal with
QantasLink to maintain air links to
the island.
–
Brisbane Airport has named Gert-Jan
De Graaff, a senior executive from New
York’s John F Kennedy Airport, as its
new chief executive to take over from
Julieanne Alroe from the end of June.

DEFENCE

Lockheed Martin delivered 66 F-35
Lightning II aircraft in calendar 2017,
in line with the company’s targets and
an increase of 40 per cent from the
prior year. Production volume was
expected to reach about 160 aircraft
in 2023.

The first group of students has
commenced training on the ADF’s
new training helicopter, the EC135,
at the HMAS Albatross-based Joint
Helicopter Aircrew Training School (JHATS).
The JHATS, run by Boeing Defence
Australia and its partners including
Thales Australia, welcomed the first 37
trainee pilots and aircrew at 723SQN
on January 17 at the Naval Air Station
near Nowra in NSW.
–
The NSW Government officially
opened the NSW Ambulance and Toll Rescue
Helicopter Base at Bankstown Airport
in late January. The purpose-built
facility, which provides patient rescue,
retrieval and treatment services, also
features a full flight AW139 simulator,
as well as specialist medical training
rooms and helicopter simulation
technology such as the Helicopter
Underwater Emergency Training
(HUET) theatre.

INDUSTRY

Y

Airbus will have a new chief executive
by April 2019, with current boss
Tom Enders to step down by the
company’s annual shareholders
meeting in April 2019, saying the
company needed fresh minds for
the 2020s. Meanwhile, Airbus
chief operating officer and Airbus
Commercial Aircraft president
Fabrice Bregier was due to leave by
February to pursue other interests
following a two-decade career in
various roles at the company. Airbus
Helicopters chief executive Guillaume
Faury was named Bregier’s successor
at Airbus Commercial Aircraft.
–
In other Airbus news, the company’s
first BelugaXL is on track to make its
maiden flight later in mid-2018
after the first of five of the over-size
transport aircraft emerging from final
assembly in early January.
–
Also, Airbus’s first long range A321LR
narrowbody completed its maiden
flight at the end of January, bringing
the aircraft a step closer to perhaps
being seen in Australia. The twohour-and-36-minute flight of the
A321LR, MSN7877, powered by two
CFM Leap-1A engines, took place
from Airbus’s Hamburg facility, with
the six-person flightcrew testing
the aircraft’s flight controls, engines
and main systems including flight
envelope protections, both at high

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14 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

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9/2/18 7:35 pm

AUSTRALIAN_AVIATION_R44_BRAND_AD_FULL_PG.pdf 1 1/18/2018 3:57:16 PM

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Debrief news.indd 15

9/2/18 7:35 pm

Rotortech

Debrief
–

Boeing reported a record 763 aircraft

An apparent catastrophic
engine failure has seen an
RAAF EA-18G Growler catch fire
after an aborted takeoff from
Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada
on January 27. The Growler’s
crew, comprising a pilot and an
electronic warfare officer, were
able to exit the jet on the ground
without ejecting. The aircraft is
believed to have been damaged
beyond repair. BARRY AMBROSE

Kestrel Aviation/Erickson S-64E
N957AC Helitak 342 is brought to
bear on a fire at Mt Cottrell, north
of Melbourne on January 6.
DAVE SODERSTROM

and low speed. Certification was
expected in the second quarter of
calendar 2018.
–
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby
Joyce took over as Minister for
Infrastructure and Transport in
December 2018 following a cabinet
reshuffle, taking over ministerial
responsibility for aviation matters
from Darren Chester.
–
Technology provider Frequentis plans
to demonstrate its digital air traffic
control tower to New Zealand’s
air traffic manager Airways New
Zealand. The demonstration would
“assess how the technology could
improve visualisation during
persistent weather issues, extend
the hours of air services at regional
locations and in turn improve the
effectiveness of airport operations
as well as safety”, Frequentis said in
December.
–
Perth-based Electro.Aero has completed
the first Australian flight of a
production-built electric light sport

aircraft made by Slovenia-based
Pipistrel. The Pipistrel Alpha Electro
two-seater, which received Australian
certification in late 2017, completed
two circuits around Jandakot in
early January. It was the first flight
of a production electric aircraft in
Australia, notwithstanding some
experimental flights undertaken
previously.
–
The search for missing Malaysia Airlines
flight MH370 has resumed after the
Malaysian government accepted an
offer from Ocean Infinity to look for
the Boeing 777-200ER on a “no cure,
no fee” basis, which means the USbased company gets paid only if the
aircraft is found.
–
Turboprop maker ATR more than
tripled the number of firm orders
in calendar 2017 as it broadened its
global footprint around the world.
The company said it secured firm
orders for 113 aircraft in the 12
months to December 31 2017, up
from 36 firm orders in the prior
corresponding period.

delivered in calendar 2017, with
the result within previously issued
guidance of 760-765 commercial
aircraft deliveries for the year and
15 aircraft higher compared with
the 748 deliveries in calendar 2016.
Looking ahead to the current year, the
airframer has guided the market to
expect between 810 and 815 aircraft
deliveries in 2018 amid growing
passenger demand and rate increases
for its 737 narrowbody program.
–
In other Boeing news, the company
in January released images of an
autonomous drone designed to carry
cargo and bulk shipments with its
unmanned electric vertical-takeoffand-landing (eVTOL) cargo air
vehicle (CAV) prototype. Built
in three months, the prototype
successfully completed initial
flight tests at Boeing Research
and Technology’s Collaborative
Autonomous Systems Laboratory in
Missouri.
–
Production of Boeing’s iconic 747 looks
set to stretch into a seventh decade,
with the final assembly line Everett
facility likely to be churning out the
“Queen of the Skies” well into the
2020s thanks to a new order from
United Parcel Service (UPS) for up
to 14 freighters amid “unprecedented
demand” in its air freight business.
The global freight and logistics
company has exercised options to
purchase 14 747-8Fs it held from a
previous order made in 2016.
–
Bombardier has received a boost with a
surprise ruling in its favour from the
United States International Trade
Commission (ITC) in its dispute with
Boeing over its C Series aircraft. The
ITC ruled that Bombardier did no
harm to Boeing with the sale of the
C Series to Delta Air Lines. Boeing
had alleged Bombardier sold the
aircraft to Delta at unfairly low prices
and it benefited from illegal subsidies
from the governments of Canada and
the UK.
–
Scientists from Boeing and Australia’s
peak science research agency CSIRO
will work together on space projects
as part of a new partnership between
the two long-time collaborators.
The new initiative will feature joint
research and development on space
technologies with a focus on the
developing needs of the Australian
space market.

Let’s face it, you’re not a real aviation
professional or enthusiast until you
bring a 747 into the bedroom. In 2001
the team from MotoArt in the US
pioneered the repurposing of aircraft
parts into furniture, with a focus
on creating artistic and functional
pieces. Beautifully built to aviation
specifications this furniture exudes
quality and can handle whatever you
could possibly throw at it. Quality
does have a price with the MotoArt
topping the table in budget stakes
compared to the competition.

COC0LEA
MAVERICK LOUNGE

RRP $3,880
www.cocolea.com.au

Bring the golden era of aviation into
your lounge room with the
Maverick aviator lounge. With
distressed grey leather and a
brushed aluminium exterior
it’s reminiscent of an age when
Constellations and DC-7s graced
the sky. The lounge also has the
practical aviator in mind as it’s
equipped with ample storage and
aluminium shelving to house the
kids’ iPads and your TV remote. For
the introverted homebody, this is
definitely a piece of furniture that
will get conversation flowing.

18 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Good kit

SKYART CUSTOM
FURNITURE &
ACCESSORIES
$POA
www.skyart.com

These custom items are all constructed by
European craftsmen from authentic aircraft
components. Whether you require a new office
desk repurposed from the door or engine
nacelle of an MD-80 with the accompanying
designer lamp crafted from Airbus A300 parts,
or a catering trolley to keep your dinner warm
for your guests at your next dinner party,
SkyArt from Turkey can custom design almost
anything you can image, as long as it has the
theme ‘aviation’ attached.

irbus bills its A380 as “the
passengers’ favourite”.
That’s the message on
Airbus’s “I fly A380” marketing
website devoted to the world’s largest
passenger aircraft, which among other
things features a wall of social media
posts from scores of happy travellers.
The popularity of the A380 among
the flying public is also borne out
in the numerous consumer surveys
that have been conducted in the 11
years since Singapore Airlines (SIA)
operated the first commercial flight in
2007.
When pressed, passengers talk
about the spaciousness, the wide aisles
and the quietness of flight, not to
mention – in the premium cabins at
least – the innovations brought about
by airlines having a big blank canvas
to work with. Think vodka bars,
onboard duty free shop and in-flight
showers.
While Airbus highlights the
potential of two full-length decks to
increase capacity into slot-constrained
airports such as London Heathrow,
aviation analysts see an aircraft that
some airlines struggle to fill because of
its sheer size.
A look through the order book
shows the caution with which airlines
have approached the A380.
Emirates Airline dominates with
101 aircraft in the fleet and 41 more
on order.
A large gap follows to the nextbiggest operator SIA, which has 19
A380s in its fleet. Lufthansa is third
with 14 aircraft, followed by British
Airways and Qantas, who both have a
dozen of the type.
The passengers’ love for the
aircraft has not quite translated into
bumper sales, with the A380 program
enduring an order drought that
stretched through most of 2016 and
2017 broken only by Emirates topping
up its existing order book in early
January.
However, the arrival of the first of
SIA’s five new-build A380s in midDecember 2017 was regarded by those
at Airbus as a cause for some cautious
optimism.
The five new A380s will replace
SIA’s five oldest A380s in the fleet,
which will remain at 19 aircraft.
Further, SIA is spending
US$850 million (A$1.07 billion)
to upgrade its A380 interiors to a
consistent configuration with new
cabin products including a new-build
business class seat, revamped first
class cabin with fewer Suites and a
dedicated premium economy section

at the front of the lower deck. (See
the December edition of Australian
Aviation for a full run-down of SIA’s
new A380 cabins.)
It was this significant investment
that showed SIA’s commitment to the
A380 and highlighted the aircraft’s
utility in what is a competitive market,
according to Airbus chief operating
officer and Airbus Commercial
Aircraft president Fabrice Bregier.
“Today, if it is not a success
with this fantastic delivery I don’t
know what I can say,” Bregier told
reporters at the arrival ceremony of
SIA’s A380 9V-SKU in Singapore on
December 14.
“You have an airline, which is in a
very competitive environment in Asia
with many new long-haul carriers,
including low-cost, and they decide
to maintain the A380 in their fleet, to
buy another five new, and to retrofit
the old cabin.
“They just don’t do it to please
Airbus.
“It means that an airline like
Singapore Airlines knows how to

make business and make money with
the A380. So this is for us a strong
vote of confidence.”
(It was announced shortly after
the events in Singapore that Bregier
was stepping down and leaving
Airbus by the end of February as part
of leadership changes at the global
aerospace giant.)
While SIA plans to maintain its
A380 fleet at 19 aircraft, there is
likely to be fewer than 19 SIA A380s
operating while the new aircraft
are being delivered and older ones
returned in the first half of 2018, as
well as during the retrofit program of
14 existing A380s that will run from
the middle of 2018 to 2020.
Similarly, the retrofit program for
14 existing A380s will take place from
the middle of 2018, once all five newbuild aircraft have been delivered, and
run until 2020.
SIA chief executive Goh Choon
Phong said the US$850 million price
tag for the reconfiguration of the
A380 cabins included the design,
conceptualisation, certification and
installation of the seats.
The return on investment would
come from being able to take
advantage of market opportunities in
the future.
“In the first place we believe that
we want to be able to continue to
lead in terms of our product in the
market and we want to also leverage
this opportunity to bring new
technology onto the aircraft so we can
future proof,” Goh told reporters in
Singapore at the arrival ceremony of
9V-SKU on December 14.
“This is also precisely what our
customers want in terms of more
personalised space and so on and
as you also realise as a result of that
redesign and also the reconfiguration

Airbus A380
we are having a lot more seats and
therefore revenue opportunities.
“So from our perspective we believe
that we will have a good case of
realising that revenue opportunity.
“We believe that we are doing a
good investment but the realisation of
it depends on the market itself.”
SIA retired its first A380 in
November 2017, with 9V-SKA
MSN003 stripped of its original livery
and returned to lessors to be placed in
storage in Tarbes, France.
Meanwhile, the first A380 with
the new cabin products commenced
revenue service on December 18 and
currently operates a daily SingaporeSydney rotation. The next two
destinations for the new-build A380
would be Hong Kong and London
Heathrow, SIA said in January.
Bregier said he “absolutely”
expected more A380 airline customers
to retrofit their A380s to take
advantage of the latest trends in cabin
layouts and seat technology.
“It is clear the cabins have evolved
dramatically. When you look at the
new business class so if they want to
maintain the attractiveness of the
aircraft retrofit of the cabin is a must,”
Bregier said.
“Without giving you the name of
an airline – it’s a European one – we
had this discussion and the answer
was ‘yes but we can’t retrofit it now
because the aircraft is fully booked so
we need the aircraft’.
“So marketing the A380 takes time
because you have seen that with this
cabin you can’t think normal way. This
is not a traditional aircraft. You need
to attract the passengers, you need to
think differently, to make sure that
they will fly again next time giving
priority to the A380.”

Further, Airbus said the
A380plus package also featured
longer maintenance check intervals,
including a reduced six-year check
downtime, to help cut maintenance
costs and increase the available flying
hours of the aircraft.
This was on top of previously
announced “cabin enablers” to add
up to 80 more seats in the cabin,
such as an 11-abreast economy and
nine-abreast premium economy on
the lower deck, new stairs, the removal
of sidewall stowage bins on the
upper deck and a combined crew rest
compartment.

A irbus has had to slow A380
production in line with a
declining order book. seth jaworski

Airbus Commercial Aircraft head of
A380 marketing Frank Vermeire said
A380Plus was a “development study”
with a proposed entry into service
from 2020 onwards.
However, some of the “cabin
enablers” would already be seen on
some airlines, such as SIA’s decision
to do away with sidewall stowage bins
on the upper deck for business class
passengers.
“There are certain what we call
cabin enablers which you will see
going into service in the next couple
of years but the entire package is
something which we look at putting

NEW INNOVATIONS, NEW BUSINESS
MODELS

At the 2017 Paris Airshow, Airbus
presented an updated version of the
A380 featuring new winglets and
other operational improvements
packaged together as A380Plus
designed to improve the aircraft’s
operating economics and perhaps
attract new orders for the program.
Airbus said at the time the new
winglets, measuring 4.7 metres
in height (an uplet of 3.5m and a
downlet of 1.2m), would help improve
aerodynamics and reduce drag. The
A380 wings’ overall dimensions
would remain within an 80m x
80m envelope, maintaining the
aircraft’s compatibility with airport
infrastructure.
MARCH 2018 23

into service in 2020,” Vermeire told
reporters in Toulouse on December 12.
“And that very much includes those
large winglets.”
There are also a number of
potential new business models for
the A380. One idea is for a low-costcarrier to carry close to the aircraft’s
certification limit of 868 passengers.
Another is for the aircraft to be
used on religious pilgrimage flights to
Saudi Arabia, which is currently being
trialled by Malaysia Airlines.
And in November 2017 aircraft
leasing company Amedeo floated
the idea of operating A380 flights
on behalf of other airlines or even
companies from outside aviation using
its own cabin crew and pilots.
Bregier was keen to also talk up the
potential of the Chinese carriers using
the A380 in future years amid a surge
in outbound travel from the country.
“Why can’t you imagine that a
Chinese airline, with the growth in the
international traffic, could not do the
same with a new hub in a new Beijing
airport,” Bregier said.
“It’s a matter of daring and I believe
that many airlines are looking for the
easy path, which is why I reduce my
risks, but I reduce my reward as well.
“We have to convince them that the
level of risk to operate a big fleet of
A380s is lower than what they have in
mind and the reward is higher.
“This is I think what we have to
work out. The attractiveness of this
aircraft, which was designed and put
in service 10 years ago, is still intact.”
He described the A380 program as
in a transition phase.
“This is not very easy but I am sure
in a few years we will have additional
orders, additional customers and we
will be in a better position to retrofit
it – it is still a young aircraft – to
optimise it and make it even better,”
Bregier said.
Bregier did not have to wait long.
On January 18, Emirates signed
a memorandum of understanding
(MoU) that included a firm order to
purchase 20 A380s and options for
16 more. The aircraft will be delivered
from 2020.
The deal ended a 21-month period
without any A380 orders and offered
the program a significant boost just
three days after a senior Airbus official
publicly canvassed the possibility of
shutting down the A380 production
line should Emirates, the world’s
biggest customer of the type with close
to half the total order book, not order
any more A380s.
Emirates chairman and chief

24 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

executive Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al
Maktoum conceded as much when he
said the order would “provide stability
to the A380 production line”.
Further, Sheikh Ahmed said
Emirates would continue to work
closely with Airbus to “further
enhance the aircraft and onboard
product”. It has been reported that
the Dubai-headquartered carrier has
been pushing for updated engines to
improve the aircraft’s fuel efficiency
and operating economics.
Days earlier, at Airbus’s 2017
orders and deliveries announcement
on January 15, Bregier acknowledged
there was a commercial challenge
around the A380, noting an internal
analysis of the program’s supply chain
determined that there needed to be

‘The deal
ended a
21-month
order drought
for the A380.’

a “minimum of six aircraft a year to
maintain industrially an efficient
production line”.
“I can confirm today that we can
have an industrially robust process
to deliver down to six aircraft a year,”
Bregier said.
“I am not pleased with the ramp
down but this is controlled.”
Airbus planned to slow the
production rate of the A380 from
15 aircraft delivered in 2017 to a
projected 12 aircraft in 2018 and just
eight in 2019.
Before the new Emirates
commitment the A380 order book
stood at 317 at the end of December,
with 222 aircraft delivered and a
backlog of 95.
In one of his first comments since

Airbus A380

taking over from John Leahy the
manufacturer’s chief salesman, Airbus
Commercial Aircraft executive vice
president and chief of sales, marketing
and contracts Eric Schulz said there
were still airlines out there looking at
the A380.
“I was talking to a couple of
customers who are still interested on
the A380,” Schulz told reporters at the
Singapore Airshow on February 6.
“I believe that the door will
continue to be open on some very
specific markets where growth is a
big issue with restricted airspace,
restricted airports. I think we will
continue to have some opportunities.
“Will that be a dozen every day?
Probably not. But that will be probably
sustainable and that will help us to

continue to live with a program which
is delivering value for the customers.”
Schulz said the order from
Emirates was very important for the
program.
“That order from Emirates
will absolutely stabilise the A380
production,” Schulz said.
“We know that at a rate of six
we are what we call industrially
viable. This means that we have the
opportunity to keep a final assembly
line open. But we also keep our
suppliers in situations and in volumes
able for them to sustain the activity.”

SIA TO BE AN A380 OPERATOR FOR THE
FORESEEABLE FUTURE
Under the new configuration, SIA
will have 471 seats on its A380s,

Where would the A380 be
without Emirates? victor pody

comprising six suites in first, 78 in
business, 44 in premium economy and
343 in economy. Suites is being moved
to the upper deck alongside business
class, while premium economy and
economy will stretch out across the
entire lower deck.
This represents a capacity increase
of between seven per cent and
24 per cent from SIA’s two A380
configurations currently flying. These
feature either 379 seats (12 suites, 86
business, 36 premium economy and
245 economy) or 441 seats (12 suites,
60 business, 36 premium economy
and 333 economy).
SIA executive vice president for
commercial Mak Swee Wah said the
reconfiguration program reflected
changing market demand and the
rise of the premium leisure passenger
willing to fork out extra dollars for
more comfort.
“The A380 is already 10 years in
operation so we look at the market, we
look at the demand and we’ve got a bit
of data,” Mak told reporters at Airbus
headquarters in Toulouse, France on
December 12.
“We’ve seen how the market has
changed and we think that the new
configuration suits the demand better.”
Mak said SIA had no plans to grow
its A380 fleet beyond 19 aircraft,
believing it was the right number for
its route network.
And despite some conjecture about
the viability of the A380 program
amid a dearth of new orders, Mak
expressed confidence in the aircraft.
“Fleet development is an ongoing
thing but as far as we can see now, for
the forseeable future for the kind of
markets that fits that particular mission,
we need the A380,” Mak said.
“As far as we are concerned, Airbus
is committed that this aircraft will be
supported.”
Airbus executive vice president for
sales and marketing Kiran Rao said
SIA was a strong partner of the A380.
“The most important aircraft type
that we have placed with Singapore
Airlines is the A380,” Dr Rao told
reporters just before 9V-SKU took off
on its delivery flight from Toulouse to
Singapore on December 13.
“The additional five plus the
reconfiguration of the existing 14,
what it says to us and what it says
to the world is Singapore Airlines
continues to be a strong partner in the
A380 and that’s extremely important.”
Airbus will no doubt be hoping
the A380’s second decade represents
something of a new dawn for the
double decker superjumbo.
MARCH 2018 25

A PILOT SHORTAGE?

NO TRAIN
NO GAIN

Pilot training in the spotlight as government re-opens the door to foreign pilots
WRITER: JORDAN CHONG

F

or more than a decade, a team of
aviation professionals with strong
airline and training backgrounds
has been attempting to establish
the Australia Asia Flight Training
School at Glen Innes Airport, a
small airfield in the NSW Northern
Tablelands. Consultant Neil Hansford
was part of this team.
The little-used airport, located
within new Minister for Infrastructure
and Transport Barnaby Joyce’s
electorate of New England, would
have been home to a residential
college for 600 trainees and all the
facilities needed for ab initio training
or type conversions for Airbus and
Boeing aircraft.
Governments at all levels backed
the project, offering grants and
building sewage and water pipelines to

26 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

the airport. Shovels were practically at
the ready.
And why wouldn’t they be? All the
forecasts show the demand for pilots
will only grow as the number of air
travellers worldwide doubles to nearly
8 billion a year by 2036.
However, the project failed to get
off the ground due to what Hansford,
the chairman of aviation consultancy
Strategic Aviation Solutions, described
as a lack of interest from the financial
community in Australia to invest in
the project or generally fund anything
related to aviation.
“The fundamental thing that
screams out is that it is nigh
impossible to finance from Australian
sources such as the big four banks,
merchant banks or high net worth
individuals, a commercial flying

A ustralia has lots of natural
advantages for flying training.
paul sadler

academy in Australia to have Australia
take the leadership in the region for
commercial pilot training,” Hansford
told Australian Aviation in an
interview.
“None approached could fault the
financials and business case in general
and all agreed that the market was
very lucrative.
“They can all agree there is
demand, but nobody has any interest
in investing in commercial pilot
education despite it being one of the
very few businesses in Australia where
you receive your revenue in advance.
“All they are interested in investing
in is the leasing of the heavy metal
assets.”
The frustration is all the more acute
given Australia represents one of the
most ideal locations for training pilots.

‘Nobody has
any interest
in commercial
pilot education.’
NEIL HANSFORD
MARCH 2018 27

“Everything is there for Australia to
be the training capital for the southern
hemisphere – you can train for about
340 days a year, we’ve got uncrowded
skies, a safe environment and a
predictable regulator,” Hansford said.
“All the ingredients are there for
Australia to be training 2,500-3,000
commercial pilots a year, compared
with about 1,000 a year today. If there
was some investment in the sector we
could do up to 5,000 a year.
“And the Civil Aviation Safety
Authority (CASA) licence is of such a
high standard that it is attractive to
airlines, particularly English-speaking
airlines, around the world.”
The Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association of Australia (AOPA),
which represents the interests of the
general aviation sector, agrees. Its
executive director Ben Morgan said
Australia had the perfect environment
for flight training.
“There really isn’t a good reason
as to why we can’t be a world leader
in providing candidates not only for
our domestic needs but for I guess our
international partners overseas,” he
told the Australian Aviation podcast
in late December.
“Aviation continues to be one
of those industries that attracts an
enormous amount of interest and the
demand and the interest in aviation is
possibly the highest it has ever been.”
However, Morgan said the
regulatory environment, a lack of
investment and ageing aircraft were
combining to act as a handbrake on
the sector.
“If we have a working, flexible and
productive regulatory framework, we
should be able to attract investment,
therefore we should be able to attract
financial investment in aircraft, in
businesses, in personnel and to get
this flight training industry moving,”
Morgan said.
The Boeing 2017-2036 Pilot and
Technician Outlook, published in
July 2017, showed there is a need
for 637,000 new commercial airline
pilots, 648,000 airline maintenance
technicians and 839,000 new cabin
crew members around the world over
the next two decades.
The Asia Pacific would comprise
the largest source of demand with 40
per cent of new pilots, 39 per cent of
technicians and 37 per cent of cabin
crew to be recruited in the region
between now and 2036.
Hansford estimated there is a
20,000 deficit in pilot training places
per annum throughout the world
to meet the forecast demand from

28 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

‘Hansford
estimated
there is
a 20,000
deficit in
pilot training
places per
annum.’

estimates such as Boeing’s.
The issue of pilot training and
recruitment came to the fore in late
December, when details emerged of
the federal government’s decision to
again allow foreign pilots to work in
Australia.
But first, some background.
In April 2017, the federal
government announced it was ending
the 457 temporary skilled worker visa
scheme.
In its place are two new temporary
skilled worker visas. The first is a twoyear visa that includes one option to
extend for two more years. However,
visa holders will not be able to apply
for permanent residency.

There is also a four-year temporary
skilled worker visa that can be
renewed. This visa does include a
pathway for permanent residency in
Australia after three years.
The federal government also cut
scores of occupations that were eligible
for the new visas, compared with the
457 visa, including pilots and aircraft
maintenance engineers (avionics).
And those applying under the
aircraft maintenance engineers
(airframe and engine) categories
would only be eligible for the shortterm two-year visa and therefore not
able to seek permanent residency.
The 457 visa was introduced by
Prime Minister John Howard in 1996

A PILOT SHORTAGE?

and allowed companies to employ
overseas workers for job vacancies
difficult to find Australian workers
for. It also allowed 457 visa holders
to have their family live with them in
Australia on a 457 secondary visa.
Current 457 visa holders were
unaffected by the changes.
After lobbying from the Regional
Aviation Association of Australia
(RAAA), and others, the federal
government in late December added
pilots back onto the list of applicable
occupations for its temporary skilled
worker visas.
However, pilots would only be
able to apply for the two-year visa
and would not be eligible to apply for

permanent residency.
RAAA chief executive Mike Higgins
said the former 457 visa scheme had
been used to bring experienced pilots
into the country as cover for the
exodus of Australian pilots to overseas
carriers.
Further, Higgins said it was not
being used as a source of pilots for
normal crewing.
“We are not relying on the import
of foreign captains forever and into
the future, it is just so we can get
these first officers trained up to take
their place,” Higgins told Australian
Aviation.
“We still have sufficient numbers
of right-hand seat qualified pilots.

R ex is feeling the pinch from
pilot recruitment drives from
expanding international airlines.
seth jaworski

It comes back to the shortage of
experienced pilots that is causing the
problem.
“The pilots’ associations and
the RAAA want exactly the same
thing. At the end of the day we all
want Australian-based pilots flying
Australian-based aeroplanes in
Australia. It is just a matter of this
short-term hiatus and the visa is the
only answer in the short term.”
When the 457 visas for pilots was
abruptly scrapped in April, that meant
experienced Australian captains being
recruited by overseas airlines could not
be quickly replaced.
At Regional Express (Rex), that
led to more cancelled flights due to
a shortage of pilots, according to the
airline’s chief operating officer Neville
Howell.
“The tighter regulations enacted in
April of this year have caused havoc on
Australian airlines,” Howell said in a
statement on December 29.
“It is a total mystery why Australia
would choose to deter highly
trained and scarce professionals like
commercial pilots, causing major
disruptions to the travelling public in
the process.”
Figures from the Bureau of
Infrastructure, Transport and
Regional Economics (BITRE)
showed Rex had a cancellation rate
of 0.2 per cent in December 2016.
The figure for all carriers covered in
the BITRE report – Jetstar, Qantas,
QantasLink, Rex, Tigerair Australia,
Virgin Australia and Virgin Australia
Regional Airlines – was 1.8 per cent
Fast forward to December 2017
(the most recent month for which
figures were available at the time of
publication) and Rex’s cancellation
rate had risen to 1.0 per cent.
However, the figure for all carriers was
down to 1.5 per cent.
While the RAAA’s Higgins gave the
government credit for its change of
heart, the association was continuing
to lobby for pilots to be eligible for
the four-year visa, rather than the
two‑year visa.
“The driving force behind the push
for four-year visas for pilots is twofold,” Higgins said.
“Firstly, it takes about four years
of experience in the right-hand seat
before you can sit in the left-hand seat
and gain a command and during that
four-year period there is a training and
mentoring relationship that is very
important and we would like to see
that relationship unbroken so that’s
why we are requesting four-year visas.
“Secondly, the sort of experienced
MARCH 2018 29

A PILOT SHORTAGE?
captains we’re looking for have
obviously been flying for a couple of
decades and are more likely to have
families established and so forth, so to
ask them to pack up and come halfway
around the world for four years is
much more attractive than say a twoyear period.”
Despite setting up the Australian
Airline Pilot Academy in Wagga
Wagga in 2007, Howell said Rex
had conducted recruitment drives in
South Africa, the United Kingdom
and United States at various times to
supplement its pilot body. The 457
visas allowed the airline the flexibility
to recruit pilots when needed.
“Rex speaks with good authority
when we say that the need for good
experienced pilots cannot be met
locally,” Howell said.
Australia’s two biggest airline
groups Qantas and Virgin Australia
have stepped up their recruiting
efforts in recent times and this visa
change was understood to be unlikely
to have a significant impact on their
operations.
At Virgin Australia, the airline has
been reducing the number of aircraft
types in its fleet, with all Embraer

Qantas has launched its
‘Qantas Future Pilot Program’
in partnership with five
universities. qantas

E190s withdrawn by early February
and up to eight ATR 72 turboprops
also headed for the exits.
While the fleet reduction had
placed some constraints on pilot
numbers, given some were undergoing
conversion courses for new types, this
has now mostly ended.
A Virgin Australia spokesperson
said the airline had a range of
entry points for pilots, including its
cadetship program in partnership with
Flight Training Adelaide that has been
running since 2012.
The cadetship program’s intake
was being increased from 12 people in
2017 to 18 in 2018.
Meanwhile, experienced pilots are
able to join the company as first (737/
Fokker 100) or second officers (777)
on its jet fleet or as a captain or first
officer on its turboprop fleet.
“We have a range of measures in
place to help manage the number of
pilots required to operate our fleet and
flight schedules,” a Virgin Australia
spokesperson told Australian
Aviation.
“Virgin Australia welcomes the
federal government’s review of the
short-term skilled occupation list,

particularly in relation to how this
is impacting on pilot shortages in
Australia.”
Qantas has also been on a pilot
recruitment drive as it inducts the
Boeing 787-9 into its fleet.
The airline announced in February
2016 plans to hire 170 new pilots over
the following three years to support
growth, its first significant recruitment
of pilots since 2009.
Its regional arm QantasLink
has also been recruiting, as more
experienced pilots in its ranks moved
across to the “mainline” Qantas jet
fleet.
In December 2017, QantasLink
launched a partnership where
students at five universities – Griffith
University, RMIT University, the
University of NSW, the University of
Southern Queensland and Swinburne
University of Technology – can apply
for a 12-week airline transition course
at the end of their degree.
Called the Qantas Future Pilot
Program, the students would be
mentored by QantasLink pilots and
trainers to be qualified first officers on
Q400 and Q300 turboprops.
Qantas is also focusing on diversity

in its search for new pilots, recently
launching the Nancy Bird Walton
initiative.
Named after the pioneering
Australian aviatrix, the initiative aims
to increase the number of qualified
women in its pilot recruitment
programs to 20 per cent in 2018 and
doubling it the following year.
“Our goal is to reach an intake that
is 50 per cent men and 50 per cent
women within a decade,” Qantas chief
executive Alan Joyce wrote in the
January edition of the airline’s inflight
magazine.
“We know it’s not going to be
easy to reach our targets. Today,
women make up only 20 per cent of
aviation students across Australian
universities. And the number of
women and girls studying science,
technology, engineering and maths
subjects shows that not enough see
careers in technical roles as an option.
“We need to change that mindset.”
Pilot groups for both the major
carriers were lukewarm on the visa
changes.
Australian and International Pilots
Association (AIPA) president Captain
Murray Butt said the use of foreign
pilots was a short-term fix and called
on the federal government to establish
a white paper on pilot training in

Australia. AIPA represents about
2,000 Qantas Group pilots.
The Virgin Independent Pilots
Association (VIPA), which represents
Virgin Australia group pilots, also
backed AIPA’s push for a white paper
on the “serious and growing shortage
of pilots”.
VIPA president John Lyons said
the visa reversal for foreign pilots
was not a long-term answer to the
question of pilot numbers.
“The problem is systemic in that
the traditional sources of recruitment
for airlines has dried up. General
aviation has been forced into decline
largely because of an over regulated,
punitive system enforced by CASA and
the flow of experienced RAAF pilots
has dwindled,” Captain Lyons said in a
statement.
“Thirty years ago the general
aviation industry was thriving. It
employed a lot of pilots and licenced
engineers which provided an
experienced source of recruitment
for the airlines. Stifling regulatory
changes and prohibitive costs
have forced many general aviation
operators and flying schools out of
business.”
The director of specialist careers
consultancy Pinstripe Solutions Kirsty
Ferguson said more needed to be

T he Virgin Independent Pilots
Association says visas for
foreign pilots is not a long-term
solution to a pilot shortage.
seth jaworski

‘It is an
industry
issue that
we have to
create these
pathways.’
KIRSTY FERGUSON

done to offer newly qualified pilots the
opportunities to progress through the
ranks once they had completed their
studies.
“The gap is that while we have
training facilities here for local
pilots, we don’t have pathways from
the flying schools and from the
universities through to the regionals
or through to the mainline carriers or
even into general aviation,” Ferguson
told the Australian Aviation podcast
in late December.
“It is an industry issue that we have
to create these pathways.”
AOPA’s Morgan said there needed
to be a partnership between the
regional, domestic and international
airlines with the general aviation
industry.
“Nobody wants to see local
jobs being given away to foreign
candidates,” Morgan said.
“It’s an accepted norm that if we
have got the demand locally, if we’ve
got young Australians who are looking
to break into the industry, we should
be cultivating, fostering and nurturing
those people through to employment.
“What we really need in Australia
is a solid partnership between the
regional, domestic and international
airlines with the general aviation
industry.”
MARCH 2018 31

hanks to a unique partnership
struck between Scone-based
Pay’s Helicopters and Idahobased Timberline Helicopters,
an ex US Army UH-60A Black Hawk,
registered N5630J and equipped with
a collapsible 3,400 litre multi-shot
BBX7590 Bambi bucket, has become
an invaluable asset to firefighters on
the ground.
This marks the second fire season
that a Timberline Black Hawk has
seen action, after another, N434TH,
was first brought out in January 2017.
While that season proved to be
quiet with only about 105 hours
of flight time, the Black Hawk’s
performance convinced Pay’s to bring
out N563OJ last December.
Pay’s Helicopters managing
director Ross Pay said the decision
to use the aircraft for firebombing
operations added another dimension
to aerial firefighting.
“I think sometimes people are
wary of new things and things
that are expensive to operate,”
he said.
“The Black Hawk sat around for
quite a while and then we had those
bad bushfires out west of Scone at
Dunedoo last February, the Sir Ivan

fire, which kept us busy for a couple of
weeks.”
The results were impressive
with good feedback from fire and
emergency services in the area.
“Once they used it, they realised
the Black Hawk was doing the work of
three medium helicopters. When you
look at the cents per litre delivered to
the fire, the aircraft is cheaper to run
than anything else they used,” Pay said.
“People were genuinely shocked
at how much water this thing was
putting on a fire. I know it’s a different
tool and it’s not dropping retardant in
lines, but if you’re just talking about
pure volume, there’s not much out
there that can match a Black Hawk.”

Joining forces

The story behind how Pay’s and
Timberline came together is one
of both good timing and demand
for a better supported rotary-wing
platform.
Since starting operations in 2004,
the Kaman K-Max, with its unique
intermeshing dual rotor configuration,
had been a stalwart of Timberline’s
heavy lift operation, much of which
focused on heli logging and ski lift
construction.

But faced with uncertainty over
the future of the K-Max, company
vice-president Brian Jorgenson began
looking at other options in 2014.
Those included the Sikorsky S-61,
Aérospatiale SA330 Puma and even
upgraded Bell UH-1 Hueys.
“There was more demand than
there were aircraft and you couldn’t
buy a K-Max. They weren’t in
production at the time,” Jorgenson
said.
“All of a sudden the Black Hawks
popped on to the scene. It was
unexpected. I literally looked at the
government auctions website and
here’s 10 Black Hawks for sale.
“It was literally a shot in the dark.
We jumped in a plane, flew down to
Alabama where they were parked
waiting for sale. We took a mechanic
with us who had been in the military
for 10 years and had a lot of experience
with Black Hawks. He crawled all
over them and said ‘If you’re going to
do this, these things are in absolutely
great shape’.”
That would eventually result in
the company’s first refurbished Black
Hawk, N434TH, going on display at
Heli-Expo in Louisville, Kentucky in
March 2016.

34 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Fire Hawk.indd 34

9/2/18 7:36 pm

Ross Pay was also at Heli-Expo, and
was in the market for a new helicopter
to join his firefighting fleet, which has
been operating for the past 25 years.
“We’d done a bit of research and
figured the old Hueys had done a
pretty good job over the years but
really, they’re getting to be a pretty old
helicopter,” he said.
“With all these Black Hawks
coming into the civilian market, we
figured they’re the next best thing
in helicopter firefighting that will
be around for probably the next 20
years. So we really wanted to become
involved with it. I did some research
on Timberline and their history and I
thought they’d be a good fit.”
Introduced by mutual friend and
HeliOps magazine publisher Ned
Dawson, Pay and Jorgenson soon
began talks on how to bring a Black
Hawk over to Australia for the fire
season.
“Ned knew Ross was toying with
the idea of bringing Black Hawks in
by either buying or leasing one to help
move the Australian industry forward
with the next generation of aircraft,”
Jorgenson said.
“After Ned introduced us, I flew
over to Australia a month later and
met Ross. I was really impressed with

the operation Pay’s had and the feel of
everything.
“We took it forward, figured out
how to make it work and we did it.”
While Timberline and Pay’s
don’t have a formal contract with
firefighting agencies, Jorgenson said
“call when needed” agreements are in
place with New South Wales, Victoria
and South Australia to use the aircraft.
Indeed, Jorgensen admits it was

N5630J on the ground at Scone.
AMMY JORGENSEN

a gamble to bring the aircraft to
Australia without a formal contract,
albeit a calculated one that is now
starting to pay off.
“We bear the risk of bringing it over
here and having it available,” he said.
“The Black Hawk is not a Swiss
army knife, it’s just another tool, but
when used correctly it can do a lot.
Once we got out to Australia and got
working, it went really well.”

N5630J has been available to
state agencies on a ‘call when
needed’ basis. MARK JESSOP

The refurbishment of an ex-military
Black Hawk for civilian use is both a
long and extensive process.
Timberline bought the first two of
an eventually six-strong Black Hawk
fleet at a military auction back in
October 2014.
While the Black Hawks themselves
were well maintained and in good
condition, they still required a
thorough overhaul with the first
airframe, N434TH, taking 8,000 man
hours alone to refurbish.
Timberline stripped out more than
400kg worth of excess wiring and
military communication systems.
That included removing two hover
infrared suppression systems (HIRS),
each weighing about 60kg, taking out
the back seats and stripping off the
original paint.
Civilian radio and communications
equipment was then installed,
including a Technisonic TDFM-9000
radio with several Motorola
APX-8000 modules allowing the
radio to be programmed to work with
all Australian fire and emergency
services. The airframe’s exterior and
interior were also repainted.
With a starting weight of between
5,260kg and 5,360kg depending
on the airframe, Jorgenson said the
empty weight of the refurbished
airframe is somewhere between 4,810
and 4,860kg – an eight-nine per cent
lighter aircraft.
Timberline’s Black Hawks have
kept their standard twin General
Electric T700-GE-700 engines, each
producing 1,622shp.
Jorgenson said while there was
an option to upgrade to GE’s latest
T700-701D engine, currently used in
Boeing’s AH-64E Apache, the small
increase in performance at altitudes
above 4,000ft was not worth the extra
cost at this stage.
“At this point, it doesn’t make
sense to make that transition to those
engines,” he said.
“The small increase in hot and high
performance has not been something
our customers are willing to pay for.”
Following its refurbishment,
N434TH received its Restricted
Category type certificate from the
Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) in late February 2016, with the
Black Hawk put to work by April of
that year.
The aircraft spent about 800 hours
on heli logging, firefighting and ski
lift construction operations before it
left the US for Australia in November
2016, arriving in January.

36 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Fire Hawk.indd 36

9/2/18 7:36 pm

However, before it could come out,
Timberline had to seek International
Traffic in Arms Regulations
(ITAR) approval from the US State
Department for a license to operate
the Black Hawk in Australia, which
included clearance for Pay’s personnel
and anyone needing access to the
Black Hawk.
Pay’s also hold the Air Operator’s
Certificate (AOC) from CASA to allow
the Black Hawk to fly in Australia.
Now on its second Australian tour,
Pay said those approvals were easier
to achieve thanks to good working
relationships with CASA and the US
State Department.
“We know we can get the Black
Hawk over here two weeks before the
contract starts so it’s up-and-running
and ready to go,” he said.

Delivery on demand

The key advantage the Black Hawk
holds over other rotary-wing
firebombers is its speed.
“All the helicopters I’ve ever flown
pretty much have an 80kt VNE (velocity
to never exceed) with an external
load. The Black Hawk’s VNE is 140kt,”
Jorgenson said.
“We can pick up a full bucket
of water and scoot along at about
110kt going back and forth. It’s much
quicker across the ground from a
water source to a fire.
“And then with the pump, we’re
able to get full buckets out of pretty
small water sources.”
The Bambi bucket can draw water
from dams or creeks with between
30cm and 40cm of water, with the
pump able to reach full capacity in
under 40 seconds.
“Firefighters like it because we turn
up with as much water as an AT-802,
and depending if there’s a dam close
by, we’re filling up every three or four
minutes with another 3,400 litres of
water,” Jorgenson explained.
“When you’re in a crisis mode of
trying to slow a fire down or trying to
protect a house, it really comes down
to how much water you get there and
how fast.
“Our bucket is infinitely variable in
that we can make as many drops as we
need to.”
At the time of writing, the Black
Hawk had only seen action in New
South Wales, but Jorgenson and his
crew were kept busy with a spate
of fires near Newcastle and Pilliga
National Park near Coonabarabran in
January. Timberline even brought out
a third pilot to help with the workload.
The company normally brings out two

N5630J demonstrates its
3,400 litre Bambi bucket.
MARK JESSOP

MARCH 2018 37

Fire Hawk.indd 37

9/2/18 7:36 pm

pilots and an engineer to Australia,
along with a 40ft shipping container
containing spare engines, blades and
other parts.
“It ends up being about $1 million
worth of spares that we bring with us,
just in case,” Jorgenson said.
Once being tasked by the Rural
Fire Service, Timberline’s crew have 15
minutes to get airborne.
“We’re on a 15 minute response
window so at that point, we’ve
already turned up earlier in the day,
done a pre-flight inspection and got
everything ready,” Jorgenson said.
“It’s just a matter of getting
changed, strapping our helmet on,
firing it up and going.”
With the collapsible Bambi bucket
already loaded into the back of the
aircraft, the Timberline crew can
transit as fast to the scene of the fire
as 150 knots before finding a suitable
clearing to land, unload and hook up
the bucket.
“We then talk to the Air Attack
Supervisor to get an idea of what the
plan is, where the water sources are
and what their most urgent need is,”
Jorgenson said.
Flying in a small fixed-wing
aircraft or helicopter, the Air
Attack Supervisor is in constant
communication with firefighters
on the ground to help co-ordinate
payload delivery. The role is similar
to that of a forward air controller in
military operations where airstrikes
are involved.
“The incident commander or
ground crew will tell him what their
objective is, and he’ll confirm if that
will work or not,” Jorgenson said.
“The Air Attack Supervisor
monitors us and allows us to do our
jobs without having to spend a lot of
time talking to other people.”
Jorgenson said a firebombing tactic
which worked well during January’s
Pilliga National Park fire was to
follow in two or three single-engine
air tankers (SEATs), such as AT-802s,
which would drop their payloads in
a mostly straight line across the fire
front.
With the bulk of the fire
extinguished and its main progression
stopped, the Black Hawk could then
come in and clean up any remnant
fires across valleys or fingers of the
terrain.
“Wherever the Black Hawk goes
to fight fires, it quickly convinces the
firefighters that it’s the machine for
the job. It’s just a matter of it being
used to its capability and what it can
do,” added Pay.

“When you look at it on paper, the
hourly rate is quite dear but when
you look at it in terms of cents per
litre delivered to the fire per hour, it
becomes quite economical.
“Most people have been blown
away by how effective it is and how
much water it can shift in a short
amount of time.”

Synergy

Despite its temporary presence, the
Black Hawk is a valuable tool in Pay’s
arsenal of firefighting aircraft, which
also included a UH-1 Huey, AS350 B2
Squirrel and two AT-802 Fire Boss
aircraft with amphibious scooping
floats, among other types.

The Sir Ivan bushfire west of
Pay’s base at Scone in February
2017 turned out to be something
of a proving ground for how
Timberline’s Black Hawk linked in
with the rest of the firebombing fleet,
joining forces with Pay’s Huey and
Air Tractor 802s.
“The Black Hawk offers increased
capability but it also complements the
existing fleet,” Pay said.
“For firefighters, they’ve got to have
a broad range of aircraft on contract
and fixed wing aircraft are quite a
bit cheaper to maintain than the
helicopters.
“I think it’s the way aerial
firefighting works. You’ve got to have

38 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Fire Hawk.indd 38

9/2/18 7:36 pm

RED HAWK

a number of different tools in the
toolbox. Some suit certain situations
better than others and there’s some
situations where they all work.”
Pay said his company was looking
at further opportunities for the Black
Hawk to be used in Australia, now
that its capability as a firebomber
had been well and truly proven.
“With the Black Hawk’s fast
transit speeds, once you’re flying
around at 140 or 150kt, you can
get somewhere fairly quick to be
effective and help, as opposed to a
Skycrane which, while it carts a big
load, is a very slow helicopter and
takes a long time to get anywhere,”
he said.

“It’s just getting people’s heads
around its speed and the load it
carries.”
In the near future, Pay’s is
looking into the possibility of
having Australian pilots trained on
Timberline Black Hawks, subject to
the various regulatory approvals that
would need to be met.
And there’s the possibility of
working on heavy lift operations
outside of firefighting involving
powerlines and ski lift construction.
“We’ve got something that lifts
almost four tonnes. It’s just a matter
of making powerline companies and
those sorts of people aware there’s a
lifting capability,” Pay said.

A good fit for firefighting
anywhere in Australia?
MARK JESSOP

“Timberline is one of the most
professional helicopter companies
I’ve ever dealt with. With the way
they run their business and how their
pilots conduct themselves and fly,
I’m very happy to be associated with
Brian and his crew.
“I believe the Black Hawk is a
good fit for firefighting anywhere in
Australia. We’d look at taking the
Black Hawk to any state that wanted
to use it.”
Timberline’s Black Hawk was
expected to remain in Australia into
February before returning home
to the United States. When it goes
it will certainly have left behind a
lasting impression.
MARCH 2018 39

Fire Hawk.indd 39

9/2/18 7:36 pm

‘We had an
aeroplane
which was
designed in
1999 and now
it’s 2018.’
GPCAPT CHRIS HAKE

The RAAF’s Hawks are being
upgraded to a standard
similar to the RAF’s new
Hawk T.2. darren mottram

raining and simulation is playing
an increasingly important role
in the development of capability,
not just in the Royal Australian
Air Force, but across the Australian
Defence Force and indeed into the
commercial transport domains as well.
In an air training context,
simulation was previously seen as little
more than a replacement for airframe
hours where the per hour cost of
operating a simulator was a fraction
of that of a ‘real’ aircraft. Aspiring

42 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

The new Hawk simulator at RAAF
Base Pearce. cae

pilots were given time in the simulator
to develop their ‘scan’ and muscle
memory of the key systems before
being let loose on the real thing.
But in the wake of the tragic loss of
an RAAF Boeing 707 in October 1991
with the loss of five crew members
while rehearsing asymmetric flight
procedures, it was decided to bring
training into the 20th century and
to drastically upgrade the RAAF’s
training environment to include high
fidelity simulators across the force.

Simulators don’t just afford
a trainee pilot or air combat/
warfare officer (ACO/AWO) their
first opportunity to be immersed
in the cockpit, cabin, or combat
centre environment of their future
operational aircraft, vehicle or ship.
Now, thanks to improvements in
the processing power of these systems
and the fidelity they offer, simulators
can now be networked to augment real
systems in exercises, and to develop and
test system upgrades and new tactics.

LIFCAP

As aircraft are upgraded, so too do
their synthetic training devices need
upgrading in order to continue to
provide a representative and realistic
training environment.
It is with this in mind that
Australian Aviation was recently
afforded the opportunity to visit
the RAAF’s new Hawk 127 Lead-in
Fighter Capability Assurance Program
(LIFCAP) full mission simulators at
RAAF Base Williamtown.

The new devices were delivered by
CAE as a key element of the Project
AIR 5438 LIFCAP, which has seen
this key fast jet training capability
upgraded in order to better prepare
the next generation of RAAF air
combat pilots.
“The program is running in
lockstep with the LIFCAP upgrade,”
Phil Randerson, CAE Australia’s
training solutions manager said in a
January 24 briefing.
“One of the decisions that was

‘Simulators
can now be
networked to
augment real
systems.’

made was to procure a training system
that was going to continue to improve
the training of pilots through the key
introductory fighter course (IFC).”
The project acquired three
simulators, two of which are located
in a new dedicated Hawk 127 training
facility adjacent to the RAAF’s 76SQN
headquarters at Williamtown, and the
other at RAAF Pearce where 79SQN
is located.
After being awarded their ‘wings’
with 2FTS at Pearce on the Pilatus
PC‑9/A (soon to be replaced by the
PC-21), those pilots streamed onto
fast jets complete a Hawk conversion
course with 79SQN, before moving to
76SQN to learn combat and weapons
tactics on the Hawk.
From 76SQN, graduate pilots are
posted to an operational conversion
(OPCON) course on the Hornet, Super
Hornet, Growler, and soon the F-35A.
While 79SQN has already
conducted two LIFCAP conversion
courses on the new simulators and
upgraded jets, 76SQN commenced
its first introductory fighter course in
January.
The AIR 5438 LIFCAP program
has seen several key upgrades made to
the Hawk 127, which entered service
in 2001, and which should ensure it
achieves its planned life-of-type in the
late 2020s.
The project sought to address five
goals: to ensure the effectiveness and
viability of the Hawk until its planned
withdrawal; to address obsolescence
issues; to enhance safety; to not
only maintain but increase fast jet
pilot output; and to adapt the IFC to
match the requirements of increased
networking in the F-35, Super Hornet
and Growler.
“What we wanted to do, we had
an aeroplane which was designed in
1999 and built in 2000, and now it’s
2018,” explained officer commanding
78 Wing, GPCAPT Chris Hake.
“So, when we were doing this
project we wanted to ensure the Hawk
would remain viable as a technical
trainer, a lead-in fighter trainer, right
up to our planned withdrawal, which
is sometime late next decade.
“A sufficient amount of time to
train is important for our Air Combat
Group (ACG) battle rhythm,” he
continued.
“Because we’ll start our OPCON at
the start of the year, and our students
for the IFC course, the introduction
to weapons and tactics and fighter
operations and culture needs to fit into
that environment.”
The upgrade is a combination of
MARCH 2018 43

elements from several other Hawk
programs around the world, but is
broadly based on that of the Hawk
T.2 Mk128 program being undertaken
by the UK’s RAF, and the Mk165 and
Mk166 programs for Saudi Arabia and
Oman respectively.
“Basically, what we have in the
airplane now is the T.2 avionics
package adapted for our specific
airframe,” GPCAPT Hake said.
New systems for the LIFCAP jets
include new mission computers and
operational flight program (OFP);
a traffic collision avoidance system
(TCAS); mission simulated datalinks
including radar, weapons, chaff/
flares and radar warning receiver;
the ability to carry an ACMI pod; a
new IFF system; a new joint mission
planning system (JMPS); a comms/
audio management unit (CAMU);
the three new simulators and
associated synthetic devices; and the
associated technical publications and
documentation.
“Of course, technology has moved
on since the Hawk was built, so there
are also lessons and issues that needed
to be dealt with,” GPCAPT Hake said.
“So, we also wanted to enhance
safety. The PC-21, F-35, Hornets,
they all have ground proximity

44 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

The CAE-supplied and operated
simulators are based on the
Hawk Mk128 & Mk165 fullmission simulators. cae

‘Missile
training
can now be
conducted on
the Hawk.’
GPCAPT CHRIS HAKE

warning systems because of the risk of
controlled flight into terrain.
“We also manage that through
procedures, but if you can put
technology in so the ground proximity
system will say ‘pull up, pull up,’ or
‘roll right,’ to provide a verbal warning
that they’ve got terrain coming up,
that’s a neat example of increased
safety where technology like TCAS can
go in to prevent bad things occurring.”
Maintaining and increasing rates
of effort was another requirement,
GPCAPT Hake added.
“What we’ve had happen in the
fighter training space, is there has
been a classic download from the front
line down to the introductory trainer
of stuff which would have been in the
Hornet OPCON back in the nineties
such as night training and having a
missile warning.
“Missile training can now be
conducted on the Hawk as we added a
simulated beyond visual range (BVR)
missile capability, so the key concepts,
the knowledge skills and attitude, can
also be trained here. Now that we’ve
got a whole range of new weapons
and sensors which need to be trained,
so the student can graduate from the
operational type and go straight to the
front line and be deployed.

“There are no lone rangers out
there in the fighter force anymore
raging around in their F-104 or their
Mirage killing everything,” GPCAPT
Hake said.
“You’re now part of the network,
and we needed to bring that in to
the Hawk. The airplane now can
simulate that, and also can do a whole
bunch of things like simulating RWR
receivers from things like SAM sites.
They’re not 100 per cent operationally
representative, but if you indoctrinate
the knowledge, skills and attitudes
right off the get go when you’re on the
Hawk, you’re more likely to succeed.”
To date, about 20 of the 33 Hawks
in RAAF service have undergone the
LIFCAP upgrade. Each upgrade takes
about 15 weeks to complete and four
aircraft are in various stages at any
one time. In addition to this, prime
contractor BAE Systems Australia
is also taking the opportunity to
address any fatigue or structural issues
with the jets while they undergo the
upgrade. All aircraft should have
completed their upgrades by the end
of this year.
The CAE-supplied and operated
simulators are based on the Hawk
Mk128 & Mk165 full-mission
simulators (FMS) with elements

LIFCAP
of the M-346 simulator developed
for Singapore, while the constant
resolution visual system (CRVS) is a
Boeing product developed from its
F-15E visual system upgrade.
CAE has a large training and
simulation footprint within the ADF,
both from a supplier viewpoint, and
through its ongoing Maintenance and
Support of ADF Aerospace Simulators
(MSAAS) contract.
Apart from the new Hawk
devices, that footprint also includes
management, training, engineering,
and maintenance capability for the
KC-30A at Amberley, the MRH-90
at Oakey and Townsville, the S-70A
Black Hawk at Oakey, the C-130J
Hercules at Richmond, the AP-3C
Orion at Edinburgh, the new MH-60R
Seahawk Romeo at Nowra, and the
B350 King Air at East Sale.
In addition, CAE is supplying P-8A
Poseidon operational flight trainers to
Boeing for the RAAF, and is working
on a C-130J fuselage trainer at
Richmond.
MSAAS and the parallel Aerospace
Simulation Through Life Support
(ASTLS) contracts allow for common
contract terms and flexible work
scope, and provide significant
Australian-based engineering and
training capability. CAE is currently

the only ADF-accredited Approved
Engineering Organisation for flight
simulators, and is ISO 9001:2008
accredited.
But rather than just providing
hardware and courseware, CAE’s
vice president & general manager,
Asia-Pacific/Middle East, Ian Bell
told Australian Aviation that his
primary focus is to forge training
and simulation partnerships with its
customers.
“CAE designs and builds some of
the best kit, if not the best kit, in the
world,” he explained. “Our focus is
changing and, as a training company
which probably, unashamedly, have
the most students in the air domain
training globally, we’ve learned a few

T o date about 20 of the 33
Hawks in RAAF service have
undergone the LIFCAP upgrade.
darren mottram

T he upgraded Hawk, and its
simulators, are intended to
better prepare pilots for the F-35
and Super Hornet. cae

things about how to train and how to
deliver training.
“So, I think what we can offer,
because we train so many different
friendly forces, [is] inter-operability
of training,” Bell said. “We are hoping
to build a far greater and closer
strategic bond with the ADF and, as I
look to the future, I think we enjoy an
enviable position in the air domain.
“Is it perfect? Well, absolutely not.
But it’s like any marriage, it will have
ups and downs, but we’re there to
make it work. We’re there for the long
term, we’re not in and out, and that’s
important.”
“We’re only limited by our own
imagination,” he said. “And I think
the important fundamental is to take
a young kid and, we expect a lot, as
citizens of our various nations, we
really expect a lot of our military. We
put them in harm’s way and we want
them to come home.
“I think what we can do is play the
very important part in getting them
mission ready, equipping them as best
we can for what we think they might
face. And of course, no plan survives
first contact with the enemy, you
know, that’s one of the sort of givens.
But if we can prepare them as best we
can, we can bring them home safely,
and that’s all we can hope to do.”

MARCH 2018 45

Versatility takes you anywhere.
B E E C H C R A F T. C O M

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‘If I can fly
and navigate
this aircraft,
it’s highly
likely anyone
can!
48 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

A

t the outset I want to stress to
our readers that I am a very
rusty pilot. Very. While aviation
was my first career, it’s been a
good 11 years since I’ve been at the
controls of an aircraft and there’s
quite a big difference between a
Tornado F.3, the last aircraft I flew
professionally and today’s subject, the
Diamond DA62.
When I reflected on this and
internally reviewed my credentials to
conduct this air test on your behalf it
dawned on me that perhaps this isn’t a
bad starting point, as the type of pilot
who would buy and operate a DA62,
the biggest twin in the Diamond
fleet, is likely to be a non-professional
aviator. Therefore if I can fly and
navigate this aircraft, it’s highly likely
anyone can! I am happy to say that

The seven-place DA62 is
arguably the most advanced
twin on the market today.
mark jessop

in my limited experience of flying
GA aircraft, the DA62 was one of the
easiest and most intuitive aircraft I
have ever flown.

Getting started

I met Fernando Villalon, my pilot
for the day at Hawker Pacific in
Bankstown. He’d very kindly let me
off the hook with any flight planning
prior to embarking upon our sortie
or the need to roll the aircraft out of
the hangar. Fernando has over 750
hours of experience on Diamond
aircraft and possesses one of those
wonderfully unique GA backgrounds,
having retired as a corporate high flyer
he has embraced his passion for flying
later in life. In addition to his duties at
Hawker Pacific, including ferry flights
around the region, he is also a Class 1

instructor keeping local pilots up to
date with their instrument ratings. I
immediately felt comfortable with his
capabilities!
The flightplan was fairly
straightforward, departure from
Bankstown to Mudgee via Katoomba
(KADOM), where we were landing
to pick up our photographer for the
day, Australian Aviation’s own Mark
Jessop. Onwards to Temora VFR
for a few meetings, then back VFR
via Mudgee to drop Mark off before
landing back in Bankstown. Fuel
tanks were full at 86 US gallons (326
litres) which was ample for our flight
which included four departures and
approaches. The only notable thing
about the day was the temperature,
with 43 degrees forecast at Mudgee
and Temora. There was no doubt I’d

MARCH 2018 49

be testing the aircraft’s hot weather
performance!

G armin’s G1000 suite dominates
the panel. mark jessop

Preflight

Walking towards the aircraft the first
impression I had was that this is a
very different looking aircraft. But to
be honest, I quite liked the bulbous
look of the fuselage as it trails away
to a back end more reminiscent of a
helicopter, albeit with a T-tail! The
raked winglets round out what is a
very unique and purposeful looking
airframe, almost cool looking in the
Big Bang Theory sense of the word.
The powerplants also looked a
bit different, again the word that
immediately came to mind is bulbous,
due to the size of the liquid cooled
Austro AE330 turbodiesel engines
encased in their composite nacelles.
Diamond has led the way in the
application of avtur-burning diesel
engines in aircraft. Derived from the
Mercedes-Benz B-Class’s diesel engine
and modified for use with cheaper
and more accessible avtur, each
AE330 is rated to 180hp (135kW).
In discussions with a number of
GA pilots it’s obvious that these
powerplants are a game-changer and
perfect for more remote flying as avgas
becomes increasingly harder to find.
The aircraft sits tall on very rugged
looking landing gear and climbing

50 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

‘I really felt
part of the
aircraft
and very
comfortable
prior to
engine start.’

onto the wing with hands full of flight
kit, headsets, water and snacks (it was
a long day) proved to be extremely
simple.
Once on the wing it was simple
to unlock the gull-wing doors with a
single hand and the door swings well
clear of the cockpit to allow the pilot
easy access to the seat. I liked the
design feature where the edge of the
seat pan can be folded back toward
the seat allowing more room for the
pilot to step through to place a foot on
the cockpit floor and I immediately
thought this aircraft would suit a BIG
pilot. Two doors on each side means
there is no climbing over backseats
or over the PIC seat to get into the
aircraft.
The walk around is very simple
thanks to the ergonomic design of
the aircraft and within five minutes
the fuel and oil were checked,
hatches closed and locked and I was
comfortably seated in the right-hand
seat. I have to admit it was nice to see
a stick vs yoke in the cockpit, I always
find flying with a stick more intuitive
than the yoke, or maybe it’s just the
flashbacks the stick invokes to the
glory days of my early career.
Once seated behind the controls,
setting the pedals couldn’t have been
easier with the press of the pedal
button by my right knee moving them

electronically to just the right position,
I really felt part of the aircraft and very
comfortable prior to engine start and
I am happy to report that this feeling
remained throughout the day in all
flight regimes.
The aircraft I was flying in today
was the fully optioned model and
you couldn’t help but think you were
sinking into the cockpit of an AMG
Mercedes or an M model BMW.
Leather trim on the seven seats
(including the rear bench seat for two
passengers which is also an extra)
and airconditioning make the interior
welcoming for pilots and passengers
alike.
To manage adverse flight
conditions and keep those passengers
and the pilot safe the aircraft was
also equipped with a weather radar,
integrated oxygen system and TKS
known icing protection system (FIKI).
Fernando confirms the efficiency
of this system as he has experience
with the usage of them in real icing
conditions.

Start up and taxi

The DA62 is possibly the easiest
aircraft to start I’ve ever come across.
MASTER AV – ON, wait for the
Garmin G1000 to fire up, Engine
Master – ON, wait a few seconds
for the glow plug light to go out and

AIR TEST Diamond DA62
push the ENGINE – START button.
Repeat and very quickly both AE330s
were quietly rumbling with all the
gauges in the green. As the flightplan
had already been uploaded earlier by
Fernando (what a luxury!) it wasn’t
long before we taxied to the run‑up
bay. While Fernando managed
this aspect of our journey out of
Bankstown, I did have the opportunity
to manage this phase of the flight from
Mudgee and Temora.
Like any new aircraft it takes a
few seconds and bit of goosestepping
to get a feel for the rudder pedals’

Bulbous nacelles encase the
AE330 diesel engines. mark jessop

effectiveness on the ground. Visibility
out of the cockpit is brilliant and the
airconditioning in warm weather
was far more effective than I was
expecting, sparing me the ‘wet back’
effect prior to line up that is my usual
companion on any aircraft I’ve flown
thanks to the stinking hot cockpit
environment. The aircraft is equipped
with nose wheel steering, however I
found myself using brakes and power
to negotiate the aircraft around the
apron – the DA62 was very well
behaved.
True to Diamond’s pedigree the
run up was…simple. This is thanks
to the incorporation of an engine
management system. No pitch levers,
no mixture, no magnetos, just two
throttles, which you don’t need to
manipulate for the run-up! Just hit
both the test button, one for each
engine and within 30 seconds engine
RPM checked, props checked and
we’re ready to go.

Takeoff

Once lined up on the runway
centreline at Mudgee, I checked the
trim tabs, in the right-hand seat you
need to use the trim wheel, in the left-

hand seat the trim is on the stick and I
noted a little right trim set on the yaw
tab. As I eased the throttles forward to
100 per cent the aircraft accelerated
quite comfortably even with the
temperature showing 42 degrees,
while it became apparent that the
yaw trim balances a tendency for the
aircraft to pull left under power and
needed a touch of right rudder to keep
the aircraft tracking the centreline.
I gently pull back on the stick
at 75kt, set a climb attitude of
five degrees and we climb away
comfortably, raising the gear quickly
after confirming a positive climb
rate, powering back to 95 per cent,
selecting flap up as we accelerated
through 90kt. Upon raising the flaps
there is a notable ‘wallow’ or “sink”
sensation, but watching the rate of
climb on my second departure there is
no accompanied loss in altitude, then
I accelerate out to our climb speed of
110kt. We climb out at 1,000ft/min
and more quickly than I was expecting
we level out at our cruise altitude of
8,000ft.
The Diamond is a very easy aircraft
to load up and go with a MTOW and
a max landing weight of 2,300kg –

This aircraft is born to cruise! At top
of climb Fernando brought the range
display up on the G1000 10in display
and it was comforting to note that our
max endurance was over 11.5 hours
and our range rings highlighted a max
range extending to the East Coast of
the NZ South Island, with reserves!
It’s during this part of the flight
regime these incredible engines come
into their own. En route to Mudgee
and Temora the aircraft accelerated
to a cruise speed of 165kt TAS with
75 per cent power set and our total
fuel burn was a measly 15 USG/hr
(57 litres/hr). On the return trip to
Mudgee we cruised back at an even
thriftier 12USG/hr with power set
at 65 per cent and the cruise speed
settling back to 155kt TAS.
Heading back into Bankstown the
warm weather had generated enough
convection to allow storm clouds to
build and to ensure we beat them
home we set max continuous power of
95 per cent, accelerating the aircraft to
182kt TAS and a thirstier, though still
impressive 19 USG/hr (72 litres/hr).
This aircraft was also equipped
with a fully-integrated GFC700
Autopilot, yaw damper and electronic
stability and protection system (EPS)
and we utilised this technology
throughout the flight through the
G1000. Let’s just say, if I could figure
out the autopilot on the first leg of our
flight, anyone can.
Often in an air test we forget one
of the most important elements of
a passenger aircraft, the passengers
themselves! Mark is a tall and
lanky chap, the kind of fellow you’d
instantly think is going to need to be
crowbarred into your average light
aircraft. The Diamond successfully
ticked all the boxes for the passenger
experience with Mark who was sitting
directly behind the pilots and when
asked to describe his two hours of
cruising in the aircraft he responded
“plush, smooth and relaxing” with
ample leg room in the forward seats.
Granted, this starts to get a bit
tight in the back row if you option the
aircraft out for the bench seat at the
rear of the aircraft bringing the total to
seven seats.

General handling

As a fully composite airframe I did
notice a difference between the
‘metal’ twins I had flown previously,

52 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

‘Control
loads on the
stick are
firm, though
balanced.’
Fying with a stick more intuitive
than the yoke. mark jessop

principally Barons and the
ubiquitous Duchess. The Diamond
seemed smoother, quieter and
more comfortable with the added
bonus of the EMS managing all the
synchronisation issues that form part
of light twin flying.
Control loads on the stick are firm,
though balanced and the aircraft
provides great feedback to the
pilot, especially this one who hasn’t
needed to push a rudder pedal in
flight unless it was in an air combat
mission! Power is extremely easy
to set using the throttles and when
something goes “wrong”, in this case a
simulated engine failure, the aircraft

was very easy to handle after feeling
the indications of the failure through
the seat of the pants and applying a
small amount of rudder to square the
aircraft up.
The final check conducted during
the flight was the aircraft’s stall
characteristics which we tested at
7,500ft. As we decelerated to the stall
the aircraft kindly reminded us with
its disembodied voice to lower our
landing gear and as we reached the
stall at 63kt the right wing dipped
slightly as did the nose, around five
degrees. With the simultaneous
application of power and a slight
lowering of the nose the aircraft

Big doors provide easy
access. mark jessop

The Diamond is an all
seasons aircraft. mark jessop
throttles were brought back to idle
while making a small check back on
the stick, around ½ inch, arresting
the rate of descent and allowing the
aircraft to settle gently on the runway.
The landing distance with very light
braking was around 1,000ft or half the
length of Runway 05.

The golf club test

The Diamond is an ‘all seasons’
aircraft possessing the ability to
comfortably fit two golf bags, three at
a squeeze without disturbing the five
passengers during the warmer months
and four sets of skis for the trip to
Mt Hotham or Queenstown during
winter. Although with a trip of that
range you’d need to be aware of the
inability to take a comfort break in the
confines of the cabin in anything other
than single pilot operations!

Want one?
accelerated, and we climbed back to
our cruising altitude after a loss of
about 120ft.
Importantly for infrequent aviators
the ESP assists the pilot by preventing
them from getting into a stall or
placing the aircraft in a position where
the aircraft is over-banked (greater
than 45 degrees AoB) or placed in an
unusual attitude. If required the ESP
system can be overridden by the pilot
by the application of more force to the
control column.

Approach and landing

Each of our approaches was a
breeze, at TOD we set a 500ft/min
rate of descent into each airfield
before flying a visual approach to
land. On one of our approaches
I had the opportunity to test the
G1000 and the aircraft’s performance
in the terminal area after Fernando
set us up for a RNAV approach into

RWY 05. Setting a terminal area
speed of 130kt I had great situational
awareness as we descended into
the initial approach fix and
subsequently down the full
approach.
Passing 2,000ft I disengaged the
autopilot and continued the descent.
I’ve never flown an aircraft without
a gear speed limit before and while
leaving the power set I lowered the
landing gear at 130kt, which had little
effect on my attitude and the aircraft
decelerated comfortably to around
95kt on glideslope.
The aircraft was very stable,
requiring only minimal power inputs
all the way down the approach
including the lowering of full flap,
allowing the aircraft to decelerate to
its threshold speed of 90kt.
A gentle 5kt crosswind from the
right required only a touch of aileron
and rudder in the flare while the

Walk around is very simple
thanks to the ergonomic design
of the aircraft. mark jessop

The Diamond DA62 I had the
opportunity to fly was fully optioned
with an asking price around
A$1.7 million, with basic pricing for a
new DA62 starting at US$1,135,000
ex Canada. If I had to take an extra
option as a leisure pilot, I would
definitely add the airconditioning mod
at a cost of around US$20,000 – it
worked perfectly on what was a very
hot day.
In all I was quite taken with the
whole look and feel of the Diamond.
It is well designed from a pilot and
passenger’s perspective and the
manufacturer has taken on board
all the lessons learned from its GA
predecessors. It’s a disrupter in today’s
GA market and there is no doubt with
a combination of innovative power
plants, composite construction, a
partnership with Garmin and modern
glass cockpits these aircraft from
Austria will influence the market for
some time to come.
MARCH 2018 53

Space tech

From the
frontiers

Space tech is not just for rocket scientists
WRITER: SOLANGE CUNIN

T

he debate of the value of
investing in space is at the front
of the Australian space agency
conversation. The private space
sector has to justify the value of the
government’s planned investment
continuously, looking for ways that
the R&D and technology can apply to
other sectors and the general public.
It’s a difficult conversation, because
it is hard to imagine that any of the
elaborate technologies that are built to
realise space missions, would have any
benefit to us mere Earthlings.
Well, it does. We use rocket science
technology in our everyday lives more
than you think.
The aviation industry, more than
any other, benefits from the R&D and
innovations that come out of the space
sector. Despite aviation paving the
way for the space sector in terms of
universal standards and commercial
scaling, the innovations achieved by
major space agencies like NASA are in
turn critical to innovation within the
aviation industry.
There are thousands of examples of
NASA technologies and innovations
that have gone on to benefit other
sectors and are used in almost every
facet of modern life.
This includes innovations that

54 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

help find disaster survivors trapped
under rubble, purify air and surfaces
to stop the spread of germs, and test
new materials for everything from
aeroplanes to sports shoes.
“NASA technologies dating as far
back as the Apollo missions still are
improving our quality of life,” says
Daniel Lockney, NASA’s technology
transfer program executive.
“Meanwhile, innovations made in
support of upcoming missions, such
as the Orion capsule and the James
Webb Space Telescope, are already
finding commercial applications. The
benefits of the space program continue
to accumulate every year.”
With a new space agency coming
to Australia, the aviation industry can
look forward to the long-term benefits
of shared innovations, as happens in
other countries with space agencies.
And as the STEM talent crisis
continues to cause issues within all
technology fields, including space and
aviation, the ability to demonstrate the
social or human purpose will become
the driving factor for recruiting more
young people with the skills we need,
into the industry
While indirect, the application of
space technology in our everyday lives
drives the STEM education mission.

‘The benefits
of the space
program
continue to
accumulate
every year.’
DANIEL LO CKNEY

The HondaJet’s design was refined
in NASA’s National Transonic
Facility. hondajet
MARCH 2018 55

Space tech
With space being at the forefront
of inspiration hooks for STEM
education, the awareness around how
work with the space sector translates
to the individual only drives millennial
motivation to join the field.
“NASA’s work represents an
investment in the future, not just
for air and space travel, but for
the nation,” said Stephen Jurczyk,
associate administrator of the Space
Technology Mission Directorate in
Washington.
“At the same time that NASA’s
space exploration missions are
inspiring young people to become
scientists and engineers, the agency’s
work in support of those missions is
creating jobs for them across many
industrial sectors. Commercial

technology spun off from NASA
research and technology programs,
and missions creates new companies,
grows the economy, saves money,
keeps us safer, and even saves lives.”
National space agencies across the
world target education directly as well.
They regularly tie classroom lesson
plans, students software licences and
other educational materials to their
new research and developments, and
almost always for free.
There are some innovations that
have been used directly in education.
For instance, NASA funded a project,
AeroPod, that teaches students about
climate change and remote sensing
through aerial monitoring of ponds
and streams, and students can learn
the history of the Apollo era through
a VR simulation that takes them from
launch to landing on the moon of
Apollo 11, for free in their classroom.
Is there a better way to inspire
young people than allowing them
to experience a space mission to the
moon?

Innovative design propels the
HondaJet faster, further with less fuel
Honda, the budget-friendly, fuelefficient family car manufacturer, is
now making budget-friendly, fuelefficient high-powered jets. The
HondaJet has the fastest maximum
cruising speed in its class and can fly
at the highest altitude in its class. It
is also less expensive to operate than
other light jets because of its higher
fuel efficiency.

Honda Aircraft collaborated with
NASA and worked with its wind
tunnel experts to test its designs of the
plane body and its breakthrough overthe-wing engine mount at NASA’s
National Transonic Facility, or NTF.

Simplified aircraft modelling packs
weeks of analysis into minutes

Any aerospace engineer who has
spent weeks waiting for their CFD
simulation to complete, only to have
to make a small change and to do it
again, will be envious of this NASA
innovation.
In order to speed up the CFD
analysis of aircraft flight conditions,
NASA Langley Research Centre created
a piece of software that simplifies the
computer model of the aircraft. This
innovation turns week-long CFD
computations into a matter of waiting
minutes, enabling faster and more agile
design practices – something aerospace
engineers dream of.
The software, called reduced
order modelling, is now available for
licence (so you can stop dreaming),
and Huntsville, Alabama-based CFD
Research Corporation is using it for
current and planned future contracts.
This innovation looks set to fast
track the rate in which we can design
and innovate within aviation.

Virtual reality helps pilots ‘land’
inflight

Takeoffs and landings are the highest
risk phases of flight and also take a
toll on aircraft structures, so finding

xx xx
a way to more effectively train pilots
for these critical phases of flight will
benefit everyone.
With help from Armstrong Flight
Research Center, an innovation
developed in industry using
augmented reality allows safer, more
accurate, and cheaper training, and
further assists manufacturers to
evaluate and design aircraft.
The Fused Reality technology
comprises a head-mounted virtual
reality tool which layers virtual
elements over a view of the real
world during flight, allowing pilots to
practice landings, inflight refuellings
or other demanding scenarios while
in the air.
“You actually get the dynamics
of the exact airplane you’re flying,”
says Bruce Cogan, an aeronautical
engineer at NASA Armstrong.
“That means external factors like
cross-winds, as well as intrinsic
ones like how the plane handles,
are all real.”
The software, Cogan explains, can
create a virtual runway, where “you can
train for this landing task at 5,000ft,
so if you mess up, you won’t hurt the
airplane. You can go try again.”
“Say I want to practice doing a
cross-wind landing in winds that
are very close to the limits of how
you could actually do a landing,”
adds David Landon, CEO of Systems
Technology (STI), which built Fused
Reality, says.
“If I did it using that virtual
runway, I can make an approach down
to a virtual touchdown.”

Design software that transforms how
commercial airliners are designed

Computational modelling and testing
has been a major innovation to
benefit the aviation industry, making
designing and testing far quicker and
cheaper than ever before.
In the early days, using these
software packages was almost a
profession in itself, but with the
NASA-funded Pegasus 5, the work
necessary to prepare a design for CFD
analysis was greatly reduced, and the
level of expertise and training required
was also significantly lowered. NASA
Ames took over the program and
refined it with Boeing Commercial
Airplanes.
Pegasus 5 has been used in the
design of most every NASA spacecraft
for the last 15 years, while Boeing
has used the software extensively,
including in developing the 787
Dreamliner, 737 MAX and the
forthcoming 777X.

A Boeing 777 model in
NASA’s National Transonic
Facility. nasa

Drone traffic forecasting

Drones are incredibly useful and have
become very popular across a range
of applications. But that means we
are going to have to get even better at
managing airspace.
As NASA Ames worked with the
US government to craft regulations
for future drone traffic, the team ran
into a problem: it needed data on
drone flights that wouldn’t exist until
regulations were already in place.
Under Ames SBIR contracts, a drone
traffic forecast was created using
planned drone operations from scores
of companies and agencies.
The enormous dataset is now
commercially available to anyone
planning drone operations.

Space-grade insulation keeps beer
colder on Earth

Did you know that keeping your
beer keg cold can benefit from space
technology? You can now keep your keg
cold all day by just adding ice to a cover
made from the reflective insulation that
NASA developed in the ’60s. It’s used in
spacecraft and space suits, and now to
keep your drink cold!

A I company Neurala is using
technology first used by NASA’s
Mars rovers for self-driving
cars. neurala

Earth images enable near-perfect crop
predictions
NASA has been producing constant
imaging of Earth’s surface since the
1970s. It has worked with a startup
out of Boston Uni to create a software
product that combines Earth-imaging
data with historical data, weather
models, and other information to
make predictions on crops.
This was able to predict soy yields
in 2016 to 99 per cent accuracy.

Planet-navigating AI “brain” helps
drones and cars avoid collisions

‘I can make
an approach
down to
a virtual
touchdown.’
DAVID LANDON

US-based AI company Neurala has
worked with NASA to take advantage
of the technology used on Mars
rovers where relying on cloud-based
AI systems isn’t plausible due to the
delayed communications with Earth.
The technology is being used
with drone companies, industrial
robot manufacturers, and a major
automotive manufacturer looking
toward self-driving cars.
The navigation and advanced
collision avoidance are especially
exciting future developments for this
technology.
MARCH 2018 57

‘Our tactical
UAVs were
also a potent
psychological
tool.’
LTCOL JOHN FREWEN

58 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

ADF UAS

L A UNCH
RE ADY
FOR

Unmanned systems
finally taking off in
ADF service

WRITER: MAX BLENKIN

MARCH 2018â&#x20AC;&#x201A;59

W

hen Australian troops first
deployed to Afghanistan in
late 2002, the Australian
Defence Force (ADF) had
no unmanned aircraft and not much
experience beyond some trials, which
did show the vast potential for this
technology.
Sixteen years on, the ADF is
becoming a UAS (unmanned aerial
systems) force with all three services
set to possess its own advanced UAS
capability to meet its particular
operational requirements.
As the ADF becomes increasingly
networked, the aspiration is for UAV
product to be distributed across the
Defence Force to precisely where it’s
needed.
That could be a synthetic aperture
radar (SAR) image of a suspect illegal
fishing vessel in the Southern Ocean
taken from a Triton 50,000 feet
overhead, video of a terrorist gathering
in the southern Philippines taken
from a Reaper – and followed up
with a Hellfire missile – or an image
of an insurgent hideout in southern
Afghanistan, obtained surreptitiously
by an Army Black Hornet, a sparrowsized UAV.
In time of bushfire, cyclone or
flood, ADF UAVs such as Triton or
Reaper can overfly an area before and
then again afterward, producing very
detailed current imagery of the extent
of damage to allow relief to be most
appropriately directed.
ADF UAVs with their very
advanced sensors could join search
and rescue missions or a hunt for
lost hikers or be deployed as the eyes
of a taskforce engaged in a peace
restoration mission.
The ADF appetite for UAVs has
emerged and grown steadily since the
late 1990s when the Army conducted
trials with the Australian Codarra,
developed by Codarra Advanced
Systems, of Queanbeyan, NSW.
This early UAV was rudimentary,
essentially a radio-controlled model
aircraft with a camera, but it gave
the Army an introduction to this
capability.
In August 2003, Australian troops
tried out four Australian-made
Aerosonde UAVs during the peace
restoration mission in the Solomon
Islands.
This was the first ever Australian
operational deployment of UAVs and
proved extremely useful in learning
just how to use these new devices and
just what they could do.
As well as producing useful imagery
of some of the more remote areas

60 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

A n Aerosonde is launched from
an Army Land Rover during
the 2003 Solomon Islands
deployment. defence

‘UAVs in
many guises
have existed
longer than
manned
flight.’

and less accessible villages of the
Solomons, these had a less tangible
but nonetheless real effect, as mission
commander Lieutenant Colonel John
Frewen wrote in Defence magazine at
the time.
“Our tactical UAVs were also
a potent psychological tool that
clearly played on people’s minds. We
openly displayed our abilities and the
imagination of the locals took over
from there,” he said.
The war on terror showed how
UAVs could be far more than just
useful novelties. As US forces bore
the brunt of fighting in Afghanistan
and Iraq, they turned to UAVs
for long‑endurance intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)
missions and increasingly for strike.
UAVs in many guises have existed
longer than manned flight. Wikipedia
dates the first use of a type of UAV to
1849 when the Austrians launched
balloons full of explosives at the city of
Venice.
Pilotless aircraft, tried out

after World War 1, followed the
development of radio. In the absence
of useful sensors, this technology was
directed to producing target drones,
widely used for gunnery practice
during World War 2. Australia’s own
Jindivik first flew in October 1950 and
remained in service right through to
1998.
This technology was also directed
to missile guidance. During WW2, the
US Army Air Force used war-weary
B-17 and Liberator aircraft, packed
with explosives, fitted with early TV
guidance and radio-controlled from
another aircraft to attack German V-1
launch sites and U-boat pens.
None of the 14 missions succeeded
and what was code-named Operation
Aphrodite is chiefly remembered for
the death of one pilot, Lieutenant
Joseph Kennedy, older brother of
the future president, killed when his
aircraft exploded prematurely over
southern England.
The Cold War and the need to
see what the other side was doing

ADF UAS
gave impetus to development of
reconnaissance drones. The US had its
very effective U-2 manned spy plane
but a flight over the USSR in 1960
caused no end of trouble when the
aircraft was shot down and its CIA
pilot captured.
The US used unmanned
surveillance aircraft extensively
for missions over North Vietnam
throughout the Vietnam War and
these proved most useful and also
expendable.
Israel enthusiastically adopted
UAVs for ISR and the Israeli Air Force
showed just what was possible in a
single day in June 1982.
Using Tadiran Mastif and IAI
(now Israel Aerospace Industries)
Scout UAVs for real time battlefield
surveillance, Israeli aircraft obliterated
Syrian air defences in the Bekaa Valley
and then shot down as many as 86
Syrian aircraft for no losses.
This one-sided victory had wideranging consequences, including
demonstrating the force multiplier
effect of imaginatively deployed UAVs.
The General Atomics Predator and
its successor the Reaper, perhaps the
best known of the current generation
battlefield UAVs, stemmed from a
series of CIA and US military projects
launched in the early 1980s.

The first Predator flew in 1994 and
its first deployment was to the Balkans
in 1995. Loss rates of these early
aircraft were high, mostly as a result
of operational accidents rather than
enemy action.
In mid-2000 the USAF thought
maybe it could arm these aircraft, and
trials with the Hellfire missile showed
it was indeed possible – just in time
for operations in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan and Iraq were
very much UAV wars, with a near
insatiable demand for their ISR
product.
After Aerosonde, the Australian
Army acquired the Israeli Elbit
Skylark – a tactical UAV with a
two-metre wingspan – in a rapid
acquisition in 2006 specifically to
support the taskforce in southern Iraq.
Skylark also operated in
Afghanistan and East Timor, where
in May 2007 one drew attention to
the capability by crashing into a house
in Dili. There were no injuries and
defence personnel fixed the modest
damage to better than it was precrash. The mishap was attributed to
an unspecified technical fault.
Skylark was speedily followed by
the Scan Eagle from Insitu Pacific,
a Boeing subsidiary. This was a
larger three-metre wingspan petrol

Army acquired the Shadow
tactical UAV in 2011. defence

engine‑powered UAV with endurance
around 14 hours. Scan Eagle flew
45,000 hours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In one incident in southern Iraq, an
Australian Scan Eagle spotted a group
of Iraqi insurgents setting up a rocket
rail and then firing a rocket into Basra.
They speedily dismantled the rail,
loaded it into a vehicle, scooted up the
road then stopped to set up again. A
JDAM, apparently from a Dutch F-16,
ended their day.
Scan Eagle remains in the
Australian Defence Force inventory,
although now with the Navy.
Australian Special Operations
Command also acquired the widely
used AeroVironment RQ-11 Raven

The Scan Eagle was used
widely by the Army. defence

MARCH 2018 61

for use in Afghanistan. This is a small
1.3 metre wingspan hand-launched
UAS for tactical use.
With its taste for UAS thoroughly
stirred, the Army acquired the US
AAI Corporation Shadow in 2011.
This is a tactical UAV with a 4.3 metre
wingspan which flew 10,000 hours in
Afghanistan. It remains in the Army
inventory.
The US military experimented with
weaponising the Shadow after one in
Afghanistan spotted a large number
of high value targets and could do
nothing but look on as they escaped.
Trials showed this was possible but
even a modest munition substantially
degraded performance of an aircraft
whose main role should be persistent
surveillance.
Operations in Afghanistan also
showed the need for a UAV with
capability greater than that provided
by the smaller tactical UAVs. What
was needed was what’s termed a
medium-altitude long-endurance
(MALE) UAS.
Just such a capability became
available with Australia taking over
the lease of Canadian IAI Heron
aircraft as Canada drew down its
military presence in Afghanistan.
Between January 2010 and
November 2014, the RAAF flew
Herons more than 27,000 hours out
of their operating base at Kandahar,
providing overwatch of ground
operations by Australian and coalition
forces.
“It got the Air Force into the game
and we much needed that. There
was no real selection. The Canadians
had a lease which was coming up
and we could take it over and gain a
capability,” said one former RAAF
officer.
“It was in great demand because
there was such a scarcity of ISR.”
Heron flew its last mission from
Kandahar in November 2014 and
officially retired from the ADF
inventory in June last year.
That has left the ADF without a
MALE UAV until new capability is
delivered under project AIR 7003,
likely early next decade.
This will be a very controversial
acquisition as Defence has specified
that this new UAV be armed. As well
as providing persistent ISR for ground
forces, it would also be able to provide
close air support.
There appear to be two contenders
– IAI with the Heron TP, a larger
version of the familiar Heron, and
General Atomics Aeronautical
Systems which is offering a choice of

62 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

The RAAF retired the Heron
in mid-2017 after gaining
invaluable UAS experience
on the type. defence
two – the MQ-9 Block 5 Reaper (also
known as Predator B) as now used
by the US Air Force, or the MQ-9B
SkyGuardian, the latest variant set to
be provided to the UK. SkyGuardian
is larger, has a longer range and
greater payload, and is GA’s preferred
offering.
Although the RAAF cut its teeth on
the original piston-powered Heron,
General Atomics with Reaper appear
to be the frontrunner at this time.
RAAF personnel have even trained
on Reaper in the US since 2015, even
flying as pilots and missions systems
operators on actual missions as
embeds with US units.
Defence has said little about how
it will proceed with this procurement.
There’s been speculation that it could
proceed straight to a single source
acquisition.
Whatever is acquired, this will
be a contentious decision, with the
inevitable accusation that the ADF

A payload operator prepares for
a Heron mission. defence

is acquiring ‘killer drones’ just like
those the US has used in its campaign
directed at militants in northern
Pakistan and elsewhere.
The ADF has even proposed that
there be a PR campaign designed
to show that these aircraft will have
many other uses, including disaster
relief and search and rescue, that they

ADF UAS
aren’t autonomous and that there
are clear procedures and policies
governing lethal use.
From Afghanistan, the Army also
learned that while UAV big picture
ISR is useful, what’s also useful for
soldiers on the ground is the ability
to look over a hill or even over the
wall of a mud brick compound to see
if insurgents are inside or if it’s been
wired up with improvised explosive
devices.
After three years of trials, the
Army is rolling out a pair of systems
designed to give the soldiers just

this ability, with the government
announcing it would spend
$101 million on a small UAS for the
Army.
That’s the AeroVironment Wasp
AE, a hand-launched fixed-wing UAS
with wing span just over a metre,
endurance of 50 minutes, range of
about five kilometres and operating
altitude of about 150 metres.
Most importantly, Wasp has both
day and night cameras on board.
The datalink is line of sight in the
encrypted military band, about
2.2Ghz, with imagery transmitted to a

A rmy personnel with the
hand-launched Wasp AE and the
Black Hornet nano-UAS. defence

ruggedised tablet.
“All of that imagery goes to a laptop
with a moving map with all the data
displayed and the commander gets all
of that. If it goes to a laptop that gives
us extra capabilities. We can tie it into
a network, put it up onto a big screen
– do all sorts of things,” Lieutenant
Colonel Keirin Joyce, manager of
the Army’s unmanned aerial systems
(UAS) program told Australian
Aviation.
There’s also Black Hornet,
developed by Prox Dynamics of
Norway and in service with the
Norwegian, British and German
armed forces.
Black Hornet has been used by the
British Army in southern Afghanistan
where it proved particularly useful for
looking into compounds for lurking
insurgents.
Termed a nano-UAS, this is a truly
tiny rotary wing UAS which comes in
two variants equipped with different
sensors – grey airframe for daytime
and black for night. It will be issued
down to platoon level.
“We have had these in trials now
for three years. We are rolling them
out across the army over the next
two years. So every combat unit in
the Army will have access to Black
Hornet,” LTCOL Joyce says.
“It is the size and weight of a
sparrow. This has the capability of
operating up to two kilometres away
for 20 minutes. Through its built-in
cameras you basically put an eye in the
sky...to look at your next step to help
in planning – over the hill, around the
corner or inside windows if you are
going into urban terrain.”
The Navy is a relative latecomer
to UAS but will soon be a major
operator.
Flying UAVs from ships presents
different challenges to overland
operations and the Navy has been on
a significant journey to determine just
what maritime UAS (MUAS) can do,
how they can be operated from aboard
a ship and what skills and training
their operators need.
The plan is to first acquire MUAS
for operation from new Offshore
Patrol Vessels and then new Future
Frigates and other warships.
The US Navy took an early interest
in UAS, signing a deal with Insitu,
now a subsidiary of Boeing, in 2005
and now has extensive experience of
operating Scan Eagle UAVs from its
ships.
The Australian Navy started
looking hard at MUAS in 2012 with
the formation of the Navy Unmanned
MARCH 2018 63

ADF UAS
Aerial Systems Unit (NUASU), soon to
be commissioned as a Navy squadron.
NUASU officer in charge
Lieutenant Commander Ben Crowther
said the aim was to establish a basic
understanding of UAS operations,
develop orders, instructions and
procedures on their safe and effective
operation.
“It was about making Navy an
informed customer,” he said.
That started with learning the
basics on small quadcopters, which
actually may have an enduring
use for conducting ship hull and
mast inspections and for discrete
observation of intercepted vessels.
In early 2013 Navy took over the
Army’s Scan Eagle contract with Insitu
Pacific and in 2015 purchased a pair
of Scan Eagle systems outright, each
with ground stations and four aircraft,
making a total of eight aircraft, at an
all-up cost of $15 million.
It conducted a trial deployment of
six Scan Eagles to Christmas Island
in 2016 and last year conducted their
first real operation, with four Scan
Eagles deployed on HMAS Newcastle,
flying more than 200 hours during a
six-month deployment to the Middle
East.
During this mission, the Navy tried

64 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

‘This is the
way of the
future.’

Then Chief of Air Force AIRMSHL
Geoff Brown inspects a USAF
Reaper during a 2013 visit to
Afghanistan. defence

out what’s termed manned-unmanned
teaming, with Scan Eagle operating
in conjunction with the embarked
Seahawk Romeo helicopter.
This is the way of the future and
not just for Navy UAS, with the UAV
performing the tedious repetitive
surveillance then handing off where
needed to the manned platform
– think Reaper and Tiger Armed
Reconnaissance Helicopter or Triton
high altitude long endurance maritime
surveillance UAV and P-8A Poseidon.
Since the Navy has vast experience
flying helicopters from warships, it’s
also looked at rotary-wing UAS and
after trials, decided to buy an Austrian
Schiebel S-100 system, comprising
two aircraft, two ground stations and
two years of support to further explore
this capability.
Fixed-wing and rotary-wing
UAS each have advantages and
disadvantages.
Scan Eagle can stay aloft in excess
of 12-hours, is efficient and covert.
But it has a small payload of a single
sensor package, albeit very good ones.
Sensor capability across all UAS is
improving all the time.
S-100 is larger than Scan Eagle – it
weighs almost 200kg – and much
more complex and has around half the

endurance. But it can carry a much
larger payload of up to 50kg, which
could include multiple sensors. It even
has sufficient power output to run a
radar.
For a small UAV, Scan Eagle
has a big deck footprint, requiring
a pneumatic catapult to launch and
skyhook, which catches the wing, to
land. That amounts to around 2,500kg
of equipment.
S-100 only needs a clear deck area
to take off and land.
Both systems have a similar
requirement in another area, needing
six-seven bunks for the embarked
crew, not always easily obtained
on a vessel heading off on a long
deployment.
A permanent MTUAS capability
is now being acquired under the
SEA 129 project, likely to be the
S-100 or the larger Saab/UMS V-200
Skeldar.
When it comes to UAS, there’s
nothing to match the Northrop
Grumman Triton, an airliner-sized
UAV with a very special mission –
to patrol at high altitude out over
Australia’s vast surrounding oceans,
their sensors scanning for all sea
traffic below.
Australia has long required a

broad area maritime surveillance
(BAMS) capability and not just to
look for asylum seekers arriving on
small boats. There’s illegal fishers
operating in Australia’s eight million
square kilometre exclusive economic
zone, drug smugglers and potentially,
terrorists.
Australia is also responsible for one
of the largest search and rescue areas
in the world, some 53 million square
kilometres in the Indian, Pacific and
Southern Oceans. As well, it’s useful to
have an understanding of the patterns
of sea traffic in our part of the world.
Australia already has part of a
BAMS capability through the RAAF’s
fleet of AP-3C Orion aircraft, now
being replaced by the Boeing P-8A
Poseidon, and the Jindalee over-thehorizon radar system which can detect
ships and aircraft far out to the north
and west.
What makes Triton special is an
ability to fly very high for a very long
time – over 55,000ft for 24 hours at a
time. Flying from RAAF Edinburgh in
South Australia, a single Triton could
range far out into the Indian Ocean
and up almost to the Indonesian
archipelago, spotting every passing
vessel, even small boats, using its
advanced sensors.
As UAVs go, Triton is big. Its
39.9 metre wingspan is four metres
larger than the Boeing 737’s.
It’s been a long time coming.
In 1998 Global Hawk, Triton’s
predecessor, made its first flight and
in April 2001 amply demonstrated
its ability to cover intercontinental
distances when a development
airframe flew non-stop from Edwards
USAF base to RAAF Edinburgh,
covering 13,219km in 22 hours.

That was the first pilotless aircraft
to cross the Pacific and a world record
for absolute distance flown by a UAV.
Despite the potential of this
technology and the obvious need,
Australia has run hot and cold on
making a firm commitment. The
coalition government of John Howard
was dead keen and in July 2006 gave
first pass approval for participation
in cooperative development of a
maritime Global Hawk with the US
Navy.
But in 2009 Labor defence
minister Joel Fitzgibbon announced
Australian involvement would be
deferred, citing pressures on the
RAAF as it transitioned from Orion
to Poseidon. The US proceeded and
the first Global Hawk configured for
maritime surveillance, the MQ-4C
Triton, flew in May 2013.
Then in 2014, new PM Tony
Abbott announced we would get

Triton. The 2016 Defence White Paper
says there will be seven, operating in
conjunction with 15 Poseidons.
It now appears the government
will make the long-awaited gate two
decision this year with the first aircraft
entering service in 2023.
Northrop Grumman says it’s a good
time for Australia to be making this
commitment as it moves from low rate
initial production to full production
for the US Navy.
This would be a Foreign Military
Sale (FMS) deal through the US Navy.
Media reports have cited a unit price
around $200 million each.
Just how well Triton works will
soon be seen with the US Navy
deploying two aircraft to Guam
where they’ll fly in support of the US
Seventh Fleet, conducting intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance
missions over some of the most
sensitive territory on the planet.

Gold Coast Airport gears up for the
Commonwealth Games and beyond
WRITER: STEVE GIBBONS

66 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

GOING FOR GOLD

MARCH 2018â&#x20AC;&#x201A;67

T

ake your pick: straight in or
downwind for left base, the view
on approach to Runway 14 at
the Gold Coast is arguably one
of Australia’s best. First, the heady
combination of creeks and estuaries,
rolling surf, kilometres of beach,
ubiquitous canals and canal homes,
parks and gardens, then the oceanside high rises that evoke more than a
passing thought of Waikiki.
Key domestic services bound
for Runway 14 from Sydney and
Melbourne generally cross the coast
just south of the Queensland-NSW
border, between the iconic tourist
destination of Byron Bay and sleepier
Brunswick Heads, before heading
north for left base around Burleigh
Heads national park and its worldclass surf break.
International flights from SouthEast Asia typically overfly Brisbane
before turning over picturesque North
Stradbroke Island and closing in on
the mainland coast around Southport;
services from Japan generally make
landfall over Fraser Island before
taking a wider ocean course before
crossing again at Burleigh.
Whatever the point of entry to
the Runway 14 final, the multistorey Gold Coast monoliths – many
architecturally stunning, some that

‘Arriving
when the sun
is shining and
the surf is up
takes some
beating.’

have seen better days, even more
underway – provide a striking
backdrop to Queensland’s premier
holiday playground, notwithstanding
the first-time arrival in a window
seat who might view them as
uncomfortably close.
The ride will never match the
drama of the once arm-rest gripping
roller coaster between the skyscrapers
at Hong Kong’s Kai Tak, but when
conditions are right a cheeky updraft
from Tugun Hill, a few hundred
metres from the runway threshold,
adds to the frisson of flying by all that
concrete and glass, sea and sand.
If first impressions count for
anything, arrival into Gold Coast
airport when the sun is shining and
the surf is up genuinely takes some
beating.
Airport operators Queensland
Airports Limited (QAL) hope this and
a whole lot more logistical planning
will win them a gold medal, or at least
a gold star, when waves of a different
kind hit the coast next April for the
XXI Commonwealth Games (GC2018)
and associated arts and cultural
festival.
The statistics alone paint a picture
of what’s ahead: the Gold Coast
Commonwealth Games Corporation
(GOLDOC) will welcome more than

670,000 visitors as well as 6,000
athletes and team officials from 70
countries to Queensland venues
including Brisbane, Townsville and
Cairns. The vast majority will call
the Gold Coast home for what the
city describes as “the biggest sporting
spectacular the Coast has ever seen”.
The City of the Gold Coast Council
says it is “one of the largest elite multisport events in the world, equivalent
to staging 15 world championships
simultaneously” and “the biggest
international sporting event staged in
Australia for a decade”.
The sports and entertainment
schedule between April 4 and April 15
will attract more than 1.5 million
spectators while broadcast rights will
take the Games and the Coast to a
television audience of 1.5 billion. A
huge temporary workforce includes
15,000 volunteers and 3,500
accredited media representatives,
while a more established longer-term
workforce has been beavering away
for several years on associated games
infrastructure.
Overall the Games are expected
to pump around $2 billion into the
Queensland economy.
If the projected incoming head
count isn’t enough of a challenge
for what is already one of the fastest

GOING FOR GOLD
growing airports in Australia, and
the busiest outside a capital city, then
factor in the overlapping Easter school
holidays, the world renowned Byron
Bluesfest and the Quicksilver Pro
surfing event.
To some it may seem the recipe
for the perfect traffic storm. To major
event planners it is a wonderful
challenge.
It’s a confluence that has been top
of mind for the Gold Coast Airport
team since the city was announced as
the Games bid winner in November
2011. With work on airport
infrastructure already underway to
meet ongoing growth projections,
subsequent Games-specific planning
in conjunction with GOLDOC,
and state and local governments,
has delivered a raft of innovative
improvements, airside and landside,
to cope with the rush.
As an added bonus, the airport
has something of a secret weapon in
its chief operating officer, Marion
Charlton, whose career saw her move
from Dublin to Sydney in 1990 and on
to the Gold Coast in 2001. In Sydney,
after involvement in operations
linked to the Kingsford Smith parallel

runway development, the winning
of the 2000 Olympics bid in 1993
led her to a role observing on-site
logistics at Atlanta Airport during
that city’s staging of the 1996 Games.
That experience proved invaluable in
Sydney Airport planning for handling
its own Games traffic in 2000.
A family decision to move north in
2001 coincided with a period of great
turmoil and subsequent springboard
for growth at the Gold Coast Airport,
sparked by the Ansett collapse and the
arrival of low-cost carrier Virgin Blue
and its highly competitive fares model.
Any thoughts of taking time out as a
new resident on the Coast evaporated
when Charlton took up the challenge
of joining QAL.
Charlton, who was also present at
the 2014 Games in Glasgow, has been
applying her Games knowledge to
key management and wider airport
team planning since the GC2018
bid win. That includes everything
from numbers of scheduled and
potential arrivals and departures,
to baggage handling (loading,
offloading, collection and drop),
security arrangements, domestic and
international check-in, gate facilities,

airside passenger movement, and links
to landside transport.
Of key importance is engagement
with members of the Games Family
(athletes, coaches, officials and so
on) as well as business-as-usual
passengers, spectators, non-Games
holidaymakers and business travellers
when they set foot off the tarmac and
into the terminal.
Charlton is well aware of the
importance of those first impressions.
“We want to make sure we provide
a warm welcome and efficient
goodbye not only to Games Family,
but everyone who passes through the
terminal during that time,” she said.
“We want to offer people an end to
end experience; for them to know
they have landed at the home of the
Commonwealth Games.”
Charlton said that, for example,
a large space is being converted into
a representation of the Gold Coast,
complete with a boardwalk, beach
scenes, and wildlife encounters,
backed by an accompanying
terminal‑wide program of
entertainment including music,
stilt walkers and pop-up theatrical
performances on peak arrival and

MARCH 2018 69

Most teams and officials are
expected to utilise current domestic
and international regular carrier
services.
“We are not expecting charters in
the sense of full teams on different
airlines but we are expecting VIPs
to drop in on RPT-sized aircraft and
other private jets. This will be a late
call. The very nature of this VIP traffic
means it is hard to predict because
there is likely to be little notice of
arrival.”
Airside, a recent RPT apron
expansion provides parking space
for four aircraft additional to normal
scheduled operations.
As well as new stadia and existing
sporting stadium upgrades, key Gold
Coast infrastructure improvements
include the extension of the Gold
Coast light rail network to link
Broadbeach, 18 kilometres north of the
airport, with the mainline rail terminal
at Helensvale. Games planners hope
direct rail access to and from Brisbane
via this network will ease road traffic
congestion on the M1 arterial.
While the extent of traffic snarls to
and from the airport precinct remains
an unknown, it and other hubs will
be well served by public transport.
Games ticket holders will travel free
and all visitors are being urged to
take advantage of enhanced public
transport services.
departure days.
Additional staffing comes from a
combination of increased numbers of
volunteer airport ambassadors and a
program utilising cross-skilling and
other training to expose what Charlton
describes as “the current fantastic
team” to wider key roles in and around
the terminal at Games time.
Games Family will have a dedicated
lounge space which will give them a
private area to relax before and after
their flights and to help ease congestion
for business-as-usual traffic.
Passenger movements are
expected to be comparable to peak
periods such as Christmas and
New Year (figures show the airport
handled a record 24,076 passengers
on Saturday, December 23 last year)
with the most dramatic spike forecast
for April 16, the day after the closing
ceremony.
In the past 12 months, in
conjunction with airline partners, the
airport has rolled out self check-in
and bag drop facilities, resulting in
queuing and congestion dropping
from up to 45 minutes down to a
couple of minutes on average.

70 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

However, April 16 will present
unique challenges.
“We are expecting around 2,000
athletes to depart with around 10,000
pieces of baggage on that day alone,”
Charlton said.
Some of those pieces will test
baggage handling: think vaulting
poles, javelins, massage tables, and
para-Games event wheelchairs among
a plethora of competition-associated
equipment. To further assist a smooth
Gold Coast exit and ease congestion,
Games Family will be checked in at
the Athlete’s Village rather than the
airport, and a dedicated security lane
applied.
Charlton said learnings from
Sydney showed that it is essential to
make any waiting inside the terminal
on key capacity days as comfortable
as possible for all travellers, hence a
rolling program of entertainment.
At the time of writing, and with
the best of airport planning firmly in
place, there were still some unknowns,
particularly around inbound traffic.
“We are still working with GOLDOC
on what that traffic looks like before
we nail it down,” she said.

‘We are
expecting
around 2,000
athletes to
depart on that
day alone.’
MARION CHARLTON

From Coolangatta to Gold

Gold Coast Airport has come a long
way since its establishment in 1936
as an emergency landing ground for
aircraft flying mail between Sydney
and Brisbane. Three grass strips were
prepared in what is now the suburb
of Bilinga at a time when the Coast’s
reputation as a holiday destination
as much as a mineral sands resource
began to take a firm hold (though it
would be another 20 years before the
then “South Coast” became known as
the Gold Coast).
According to the airport history, the
first regular passenger services started
in 1939. By 1947 regular Queensland
Airlines and Better Air Transport
services were in place, followed in
1954 by TAA using DC-3s and later
Skymasters and Convairs.
Construction of the northern part
of the original terminal was completed
in the early ’50s with annual passenger
movements approaching 12,000. By
1958 the runway and taxiways were
sealed along with the access road and
carpark and a light aircraft apron was
provided.
Work on the existing terminal

GOING FOR GOLD
complex began in 1980 with annual
passenger movements exceeding
650,000. Upgrading of the main
runway for widebodied aircraft (767
and A300) operations came along
in 1982 with the first international
charter flights starting eight years
later. Privatisation saw ownership
of the airport shift from the Federal
Airports Corporation to Queensland
Airports Limited (QAL) in 1998.
For many years, it was known as
Coolangatta Airport in recognition
of the nearby burgeoning holiday
destination and while the name
changed in 1999 a significant remnant
remains in its IATA designation OOL
and ICOA tag YBCG.
Since the turn of the century,
growth has been exponential,
matching the needs of a growing
Gold Coast permanent and transient
holiday population as well as the
city’s emergence as an economic,
educational and development
powerhouse. An original and
continuing focus on the low-cost
airline market has expanded with
full-service international carriers now
recognising Gold Coast potential.
A case in point is the relatively
recent Gold Coast Hong-Kong route
(outward bound via Cairns) operated
by Hong Kong Airlines which further
opens a wider Asian market serviced
by Jetstar (Tokyo, Osaka), Scoot
(Singapore) and AirAsia X (Kuala
Lumpur). Apart from Australian
domestic services operated by Qantas,
Jetstar, Virgin, Tigerair and JetGo,
there are Gold Coast connections to
New Zealand via Jetstar, Virgin, Air
New Zealand and AirAsia X.
Charlton said the most recent
major redevelopment of the
terminal was completed in 2010, a
$100 million project that, at the time,
was Australia’s first purpose-built
low-cost carrier terminal. The airport
now welcomes 6.5 million passengers
a year with 420 flights a week off its
2,492 metre Runway 14-32 handling
everything from private aircraft
to 737s to A330-300 and 787-9
Dreamliner “heavies”.
While the overall story is
overwhelmingly positive, significant
community debate was stirred by
an ongoing project to install an
ILS, principally as a bad weather
supplement to the current RNAV
approach and to help prevent the need
for weather diversions.
Despite government approval in
2016, it drew objections from some
residents worried about potential
for greater aircraft noise along an

extended flightpath. The project
became subject to ruling by the
Administrative Appeals Tribunal,
preventing installation in time for the
Games.
Charlton said the ILS is expected
to be completed by the end of 2018
and fully operational by 2019. Noise
Abatement Procedures (NAPs) have
been developed to ensure the ILS
will only be used when operationally
required.
Meanwhile, an existing curfew
restricts airport operations between
11pm and 6am.

If lead role in the airport Games
project wasn’t enough, Charlton
also has a long term “day job”:
oversight of the ongoing $340 million
transformation of airport expansion
known as Project LIFT.
“When the business of the
Commonwealth Games is done, we
will move into construction of our
southern terminal,” she said. “This
includes a new three-level terminal
with aerobridges which will house

G old Coast Airport is gearing
up to handle 16.5 million
passengers by 2037.
gold coast airport

the airport’s international operations.
A range of other upgrades are
also planned as part of the project
including a consolidated ground
transport facility.
“We are also working on a
broader property strategy to activate
commercial opportunities within the
airport precinct. A key part of this
is the delivery of a four-star Rydges
hotel which we will break ground on
this year. It will feature 192 rooms
and facilities for business and leisure
guests.”
It is all about QAL and the airport
catering for Gold Coast growth
projections that demographer
Bernard Salt says will see the city’s
resident population double by 2050 to
1.5 million. Charlton says the airport
masterplan reflects passenger growth
from 6.5 million to 16.5 million by
2037.
When asked if keeping pace with
the requirements of such a steep
growth curve was a problem for
management, Charlton was succinct.
“It’s a great problem to have,” she
said.

MARCH 2018 71

NEED
xx xxFOR SPEED

Bell’s new tiltrotor is first to take to the skies in the
countdown to Future Vertical Lift

THE NEED F
WRITER: ROBERT NUTBROWN

72 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

The US’s Future Vertical Lift program could
result in Australia’s next battlefield helicopter

FOR SPEED
WRITER: ROBERT NUTBROWN

MARCH 2018 73

T

he US military’s effort to
introduce the next generation
of vertical takeoff and landing
(VTOL) aircraft has quite literally
taken off, with the Bell V-280 Valor
tiltrotor completing its maiden flight.
The air vehicle concept
demonstrator aircraft is being
developed under the US Army
initiative known as the Joint MultiRole Technology Demonstration.
This endeavour is exploring new
vertical-lift capabilities, and is a
forerunner to the Future Vertical Lift
program that is expected to produce
VTOL aircraft that will fly faster
and further, carry heavier loads and
operate with unmanned systems.
And the historic flight offers a
glimpse into the future for Australia,
which is understood to have entered
into discussions with the US
government to join the Future Vertical
Lift effort.
The V-280 prototype achieved
first flight on December 18 at the
Bell Helicopter assembly facility in
Amarillo, Texas.
Marketed by the company as
promising “more than twice the
speed and range of current helicopter
platforms”, the V-280 is anticipated
to have a cruise speed of 280kt, hence
the name.

74 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

What’s in a name? The V-280 is
expected to have a cruise speed of
280kt. bell helicopter

‘What that
provides
to the
commander
is a huge leap
in capability.’
KEITH FLAIL

By way of comparison, the
UH‑60M Black Hawk helicopter has
a cruise speed of 151 knots and the
AH-64E Apache has a maximum level
flight speed of more than 150 knots. It
remains to be seen whether Bell will
be able to achieve double the speed.
Meanwhile, the tiltrotor aircraft’s
self-deployable range is listed as
2,100nm or more (without refuelling).
“As we go through 2018, our goal is
to demonstrate...the helicopter mode,
through conversion to aeroplane
mode; showing the speed, showing
the range, showing the [hot and
high] capability of the aircraft,” Keith
Flail, Bell vice-president of advanced
tiltrotor systems, told Australian
Aviation.
“We have made that commitment
to the [US] Army leadership that we
intend to exercise and to expand the
envelope, so that we can demonstrate
all those capabilities; so that they
have the most informed position
possible for the Future Vertical
Lift program as we inform the
requirements and continue to reduce
risk for the future.”
The V-280 has a footprint that is
comparable to that of the UH-60,
although it is “a little bit” wider, Flail
said. Indeed, observers have noted
that the shape of the V-280’s fuselage

is similar to that of the Black Hawk.
With a crew of four (two pilots and
two crew chiefs), the tiltrotor would
be capable of carrying 12 troops,
depending on requirements.
Flail expressed confidence that
Bell will be able to demonstrate
“incredible” agility at both high
and low speeds, and described a
hypothetical operational scenario to
illustrate the point.
Imagine that a V-280 is about four
miles from the landing zone (LZ),
100ft up and travelling at 250kt.
Within one minute, the tiltrotor
would be on the ground and soldiers
would be egressing the aircraft
through two 1.8m-wide side doors.
And then within about 35 seconds
of leaving the LZ and getting back to
100ft, the aircraft would be speeding
away at more than 200kt.
“If you map that out compared to
what a Black Hawk can do, when you
want to talk about agility – low-speed
agility, high-speed agility, as well
as the operational agility; what that
provides to the commander – it is a
huge leap in capability,” Flail declared.

Lessons learned

The V-280 is regarded as a clean-sheet
design, but it leverages lessons learned
from the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey

NEED FOR SPEED
tiltrotor, which famously combines the
vertical flight capability of a helicopter
with the speed and range of a fixedwing aircraft.
As a measure of this experience, it
was announced in November last year
that the V-22 fleet (including the US
Marine Corps MV-22 and the US Air
Force CV-22) has surpassed a total of
400,000 flight hours.
Sadly, the Osprey’s safety record
has been under the spotlight here in
Australia after three US marines died
when an MV-22B crashed off the coast
of the Shoalwater Bay Training Area
in Queensland in August.
There are significant design
differences between the V-22 and the
V-280.
While the entire rotor system and
engine/transmission nacelles that
are mounted on each wingtip of the
Osprey rotate 90 degrees, the Valor’s
engines are designed to remain fixed
when the next-generation tiltrotor
converts from helicopter mode to
aeroplane mode for horizontal flight.
Avoiding rotating the GE Aviation
T64-GE-419 engines by adopting
the fixed engine/rotating proprotor nacelles design is intended to

maximise cabin ingress and egress
clearance for troops.
“The United States Army, which
has the largest vertical-lift fleet on
the planet, they have been coming
out of side doors of aircraft for air
assault operations for decades,” Flail
observed.
“Understanding that customer,
how they operate; being able to come
in operationally to a landing zone
with an aircraft that has twice the
speed, twice the range; that element of
surprise, speed and survivability.
“To come in, open the side doors,

troops come out of the aircraft; no
safety issues with main rotors and tail
rotors, with the engine in the fixed
position and just the props rotating,
gives them 7ft of clearance under the
wing to come in and out of the aircraft.
“You can put machine guns on the
aircraft to provide suppressive fire as
you are coming into the LZ. So some
of it was for technical reasons, some of
it is from the learning from the V-22
experience and some of it is for pure
operational reasons.”
And unlike the V-22 with its
forward-swept dihedral wing, the
V-280 has a simpler straight wing
design.
“We are very focused on
design for affordability, design for
manufacturing,” Flail said. “How we
build that wing significantly gets cost
and complexity out.
“We no longer have a mid-wing
gearbox over the fuselage, because we
do not have the sweep and dihedral in
the aircraft.”
The V-280 is being equipped
with what is known as the Pilotage
Distributed Aperture Sensor, which is
a system that will provide 360-degree
situational awareness.

MARCH 2018 75

This capability would allow pilots
and troops alike to ‘see through’ the
aircraft structure, offering a view of
what is happening on the battlefield
below.
The V-280 will be cyber-hardened,
and will support an open system
architecture to facilitate hardware and
software upgrades.

Speed and range

Bell is not only targeting the US Army;
the company envisages the nextgeneration tiltrotor becoming a multiservice, multi-mission aircraft.
An automatic blade-fold/wingstow capability similar to that of the
Osprey, which is a key feature of its
shipboard compatibility, could be
incorporated into the Valor design if
required.
“The V-280 could be used for utility
transport operations; it could be
configured as an attack aircraft, and
also for medevac, especially with the
speed and range that we have, what
that means in that golden hour if you
have wounded troops out there on the
battlefield,” Flail said.
The medevac variant might be of
particular interest to Australia, given
that the 2016 Defence White Paper
talked about investigating options to
enable the Australian Defence Force
(ADF) to undertake combat search
and rescue (CSAR) tasks more quickly
and at longer ranges.
Defence will explore options for

76 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

The original SB>1 Defiant
undergoing a ground run. sikorsky

acquiring a long-range aeromedical
evacuation and CSAR aircraft that
would be capable of operating from
the Canberra class amphibious assault
ships, according to the Integrated
Investment Program that was released
with the Defence White Paper.
The capability investment
document lists the Long-Range
Combat Search and Rescue Aircraft
program as having a timeframe of
2023 to 2032.
“Speed and range equate to
operational productivity, and
give commanders so much more
operational flexibility in terms of what
they can do,” Flail explained. “You can
pick an operation, whatever part of the

planet you want to.
“So if you are looking out into
the Pacific, where helicopters are
extremely challenged because of the
limited range that they have and just
the geography that they have to deal
with, you get so much more capability
in the Pacific.
“Look at Africa and the tyranny of
distance of all those operations, what
speed and range can mean to you.”
Bell is reluctant to comment
on any possible acquisition of the
V-280 by Australia as any potential
sale of its military aircraft would be
a government-to-government deal
under the Foreign Military Sales
(FMS) program.

NEED FOR SPEED
However, Flail said he understands
that Australia, among others, has
“expressed interest in a variety
of ways” in dialogue with the US
government.
And he raised the possibility that
the Future Vertical Lift program could
potentially adopt a model along the
lines of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
program, with partner countries
joining the effort.
For now, Defence is remaining
tight-lipped.
When asked about a media report
stating that Australia has submitted

a ‘letter of interest’ regarding
participation in the US effort, a
spokesperson for Defence simply
said Australia “remains interested”
in the Joint Multi-Role Technology
Demonstration and the Future
Vertical Lift program.

Rival design

Sikorsky is partnered with Boeing
to develop the SB>1 Defiant
helicopter under the Joint Multi-Role
Technology Demonstration program.
This demonstrator aircraft design
has coaxial counter-rotating rigid

D espite appearances there are
significant design differences
between the V-22 (below) and
the V-280 (bottom). defence & bell
helicopter

main rotor blades and a pusherpropeller to enable high-speed
acceleration and deceleration.
Lockheed Martin, which owns
Sikorsky, says the development of the
Defiant will prove the scalability and
flexibility of the X2 technology that
is also the basis for the S-97 Raider
prototype helicopter.
With a crew of four, the Defiant
medium-lift helicopter is expected to
be capable of carrying 12 troops and
their equipment.
First flight for the Defiant had been
expected to be achieved in 2017, but
this is now due to occur some time this
year.
“Our Defiant aircraft is mostly
built,” Randy Rotte, director of
business development for cargo
helicopter and Future Vertical Lift
programs at Boeing, told Australian
Aviation.
“We have tested nearly all of
our onboard systems, to include
hydraulics, engines, fuel systems,
electrical systems, avionics and some
electronically actuated flight control
surfaces.
“We lack only the delivery of some
key components to complete our
build.”

MARCH 2018 77

NEED FOR SPEED
Rotte did not specify which
components are missing.
However, according to a media
report from September last year that
quoted US Army Joint Multi-Role
Technology Demonstration program
director Dan Bailey, the delay in
achieving first flight is down to
challenges relating to the manufacture
of the Defiant’s rotor blades.
The prototype aircraft is being
assembled at Sikorsky’s Development
Flight Center in West Palm Beach,
Florida, where all of the ground and
flight testing of the Defiant will be
conducted.
“The Sikorsky/Boeing team is
taking a disciplined, risk reduction
approach to the SB>1 Defiant
program, which will culminate in
flight test of the demonstrator,” Rich
Koucheravy, business development
director for Future Vertical Lift at
Sikorsky, told Australian Aviation.
“We plan to fly in 2018 after
successful completion of integration
testing, ground test, dne [do not
exceed limits] establishment and
testing on the propulsion system
testbed ground test stand.
“We believe this approach will
safely lead us to a productive,
informative flight test program that
will assist the DoD in its objectives.”

‘That gives
you some
innovative
new ways
to do air
operations.’
DR MALCOLM DAVIS

Hard landing

As for the Raider program, Sikorsky
suffered a setback in August last year
when S-97A registration N971SK
made a hard landing during a test
flight in Florida.
The experimental helicopter
sustained “substantial” damage
and both pilots suffered minor
injuries in the accident, according
to a preliminary report issued by the
National Transportation Safety Board.
At the time of the hard landing,
a second Raider demonstrator was
already about 80 per cent built.
“We are in the process of
completing that build, and estimate
that we will be complete and that we
will resume flight testing over the next
several months,” Koucheravy said.
The cause of the accident has been
identified, Sikorsky says, and changes
have been made in an effort to prevent
such an incident from happening
again.
“The Raider and Defiant share
a common technology base, X2
technology; as a result, we have a
process in place to share lessons
learned from Sikorsky’s Raider
program with the Sikorsky/Boeing
team that is working on Defiant,”

Koucheravy said.
“The cause of that hard landing is
unrelated to the X2 technology, but
we nonetheless shared that lesson
learned with the Defiant team.”
An issue with the flight control
system software was to blame,
according to media reports quoting
Chris Van Buiten, vice-president of
Sikorsky Innovations.
Lockheed Martin envisages the
Raider light tactical helicopter as
carrying six troops and external
weapons.
At the time of an announcement
regarding the achievement of its first
flight in May 2015, Sikorsky stated
that the aircraft’s coaxial rotor/
pusher-propeller design was expected
to enable the Raider to hit a cruise
speed of up to 240kt.
The predecessor to the Raider, the
X2 demonstrator aircraft, clocked up
a total of about 22 flight hours before
its retirement, having achieved a
maximum cruise speed in level flight
of 253 knots in September 2010.
A promotional video states that
Future Vertical Lift aircraft from
Sikorsky and Boeing will be capable of
cruise speeds of more than 250 knots.
Thus far, the Sikorsky/Boeing
team has not provided the ADF
with detailed information about the
Defiant helicopter beyond some basic
information that has been approved
for public release.
However, this situation is expected
to change if Australia decides to get
involved in the Future Vertical Lift
program.
“We are aware that the US
government is discussing potential
international cooperation with
Australia on the Future Vertical Lift
program, and so we look forward to
the opportunity to provide the ADF
detailed information on Defiant after

obtaining the appropriate approvals
from the US government,” Rotte said.
“We have expressed our desire to
do so to the US government and are
beginning the process of obtaining
that approval.”
Rotte added that Boeing and
Sikorsky are confident the Defiant
would be suitable for use by the ADF,
and declared that detailed discussions
would demonstrate this.
“The US and Australia share
much in common about the way they
use vertical-lift aircraft to support
military operations, and the two
countries place a great emphasis
on interoperability,” the Boeing
spokesperson noted.

Transition platform

Although any potential acquisition
of Future Vertical Lift aircraft by
Australia may be some way off, the
decision on replacing the Tiger ARH
attack helicopter will be a key factor
in determining the path that the
Australian Army follows.
That is the view of Dr Malcolm
Davis, senior analyst in defence
strategy and capability at the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
(ASPI).
Dr Davis told Australian Aviation
that he understands the Tiger
replacement, which is to be introduced
from the mid-2020s, is envisaged as
a “transition platform” that would
pave the way for a Future Vertical
Lift capability for Australia in the late
2030s.
Australia will likely acquire the
Boeing AH-64E Apache ‘Echo’ to
replace the Tiger (subject to funding
and capability requirements), the
ASPI analyst said.
“Whatever we get in the next
step to replace the Aussie Tiger will
determine probably where we go in

the following step with the Future
Vertical Lift side of things,” he said.
“Decisions that are made over the
next few years about replacing the
Aussie Tiger I think are going to be
fairly influential in deciding what is
the future down the track in the 2030s
and beyond.”
As the Integrated Investment
Program states, the future Armed
Reconnaissance Helicopter
Replacement capability that will
succeed the Tiger could involve
manned or unmanned systems, or a
combination of both.
Dr Davis anticipates the US
Marine Corps being the first adopter
of the V-280 Valor, rather than the
US Army, and sees the tiltrotor as a
suitable option for Australia.
“The V-280 obviously would give
Australia a high-speed troop-carrying
capability,” he said.
“You could attach weapons pods
to it, so it gives it an armed troopcarrying capability, which would be
very useful.
“And so in terms of tactical mobility
across the battlespace, the V-280 is
obviously a good option.”
The troop-carrying Valor aircraft
could be escorted by Bell’s unmanned
V-247 Vigilant tiltrotor, he added.
“That gives you some innovative
new ways to do air operations across

the battlespace, because you can
exploit speed, manoeuvrability,
surprise and so forth, which you
cannot really exploit with traditional
rotary-wing platforms like Chinook,
for example, or the Black Hawk,” Dr
Davis said.
“You have got greater range, you
have got greater speed, you have got
greater manoeuvrability, and you
have that potential for a mannedunmanned teaming that is really
important, not only for the Future
Vertical Lift but also for the nextgeneration platform, like Apache
Echo.”
However, when considering the
acquisition of new types of aircraft, it
is not just a matter of weighing up the
pros and cons of a particular platform
and assessing the costs involved.
“There is that cultural resistance

hatever platform the US Army
W
chooses for its Joint Vertical Lift
requirement could ultimately
replace Australia’s MRH-90s as
well. defence

that militaries have to get through –
and it is happening in the US military
as well; there is a degree of cultural
resistance to unmanned combat air
vehicles, for example – that I think
you have to think about when you
are looking at these procurement
decisions,” Dr Davis observed.
An armed service must be ready to
embrace the introduction of a new sort
of capability for the first time; in this
case, tiltrotor aircraft.
“When the V-22 came out there
was a great deal of resistance and we
did not go down that path,” the ASPI
analyst said.
“Now that the tiltrotor concept has
matured a bit, and I think is starting
to show its advantages, will [the
Australian] Army take that path more
easily in the future?
“It is possible that you could see
with that combat search and rescue
requirement that they do go down
the tiltrotor path, and then that leads
them to a V-280, V-247 platform
choice in the 2030s.”
Rather than settling on just one
type of aircraft design for all missions,
it is likely the US Army will end up
with a mix of tiltrotor and coaxial
aircraft.
And it will be fascinating to see
what path the ADF takes in the
coming years.
MARCH 2018 79

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9/2/18 4:30 pm

‘His mission
was to provide
a “mantle of
safety” for people
living in the bush.’

A patient is loaded onto an RFDS
Pilatus PC-12, the type which Nick
Tully flew with the RFDS Central
Section. rfds

ince the early days of powered flight,
the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS)
has been providing critical aeromedical
services to those living in rural and
remote Australia.
Founded in Queensland in 1928, the
service was the brainchild of Rev John Flynn.
His mission was to provide a ‘mantle of safety’
for people living in the bush. From humble
beginnings all those years ago, the RFDS
has grown to operate across all states and
territories in Australia.
Ninety years may have passed since
that first flight, but the heart and soul of
the RFDS remains in Queensland. From
its headquarters at Brisbane International
Airport a fleet of 17 aircraft are monitored
and controlled in a carefully orchestrated
operation that protects people living across
the 1.85 million km2 state.

The Queensland Section alone flew over
7.52 million kilometres in the past year. This
was achieved by a staggering 23,135 flight
hours with 11,359 patients accessing the vital
service. The service is supported by a team of
highly motivated professionals whose skills
range from doctors to mechanics, fundraisers
to pilots.

Flying for the Doctor

A team of skilled pilots is essential to the
success of the Flying Doctor. In Queensland
the pilots are based at a number of locations
across the state, including Charleville, over
700km west of Brisbane.
Here, six pilots and a team of doctors and
nurses cover the western-most parts of the
state utilising a single Beechcraft King Air.
The senior base pilot at Charleville is Nick
Tully, who joined the RFDS in 2014.

MARCH 2018 83

Having grown up in remote
Queensland, working for the RFDS
had been an aspiration for Tully for
as long as he can remember. With a
large family living so far from major
cities and towns, Tully like most
people living in the bush has an acute
understanding of how important the
service is.
“RFDS was a big part of our lives,
with eight boys and two girls all out
doing things like riding motorbikes,
there were accidents and most of my
family had been flown out by RFDS
at some point,” Tully told Australian
Aviation in January.
“We all looked up to them as the
all-encompassing guardian angel.
That’s how it is for people living in
the rural communities, the RFDS is a
lifeline.”
Tully’s flying career started in aerial
mustering where he clocked up 800 to
1,000 hours per year. This four-year
stint saw him flying across 17 stations
in a single-pilot environment, which
quickly accelerated his skills and
expertise as a pilot.
It’s this early experience with rural
flight that taught the young pilot the
skills and discipline required to fly for
an aeromedical service.
“The biggest benefit for me was
flying remote and rural to start with.
I grew up remote so this is what I
wanted to do. But I had to make a
choice to go out day after day and do
those hours, single pilot in the remote
areas,” Tully explains.
“This is what taught me how to be
a good RFDS pilot. The more remote
flying you can do, the better.”
After a move to Western Australia
Tully exchanged his aerial mustering
career for a role at the Goldfields Air
Services in Kalgoorlie. Here he flew
larger two-pilot aircraft and gained
further skills in the coordination and
cooperation required by a multiperson crew.
Tully realised his aspiration to
fly for the RFDS when he joined the
Central Section (South Australia
and Northern Territory) in 2014
flying Pilatus PC-12s. But his heart
remained in Queensland, so when
the opportunity arose to return to his
home state he took it up and hasn’t
looked back.

No ordinary pilot

The pilot’s role at the Flying Doctor
is unlike nearly any in the aviation
industry. Flying as a solo pilot across
the vastness of Queensland might
sound lonely; but pilots at the RFDS
work hand in hand with the doctors

84 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Nick Tully is senior base pilot at
Charleville. rfds

‘We may be
mid-flight
and then
need to divert
unexpectedly.’
NICK TULLY

and nurses during aeromedical
retrievals to ensure the highest chance
of a positive health outcome for each
patient.
“This job isn’t the same as the pilot
you see on your commercial flight. We
are flying as a single pilot but when
the aircraft is on the ground we’re
out there helping with the medical
retrieval,” comments Tully.
“Patient loading is the pilot’s
responsibility and I always go along to
the hospitals to lend a hand, such as
collecting gear or assisting the nurses
with the patient transfer. It’s a very
diverse job and also very satisfying.”
And unlike commercial flights
where the destination is known at the
time of departure, the nature of the
work undertaken by the Royal Flying
Doctor means that Tully and his team
are often required to make changes on
the go.
“The nature of aeromedical
retrievals means there are sometimes
ad-hoc tasks and changes on the go.
For example, we may be mid-flight
and then need to divert unexpectedly
to another location due to a medical
situation that has developed since

we took off. It’s a great challenge and
exceptionally rewarding for a pilot.”
Some of the challenges facing
pilots include the distances across
Queensland, as well as a need to keep
on top of fuel levels, particularly when
faced with diversions when urgent
medical situations develop while the
aircraft is in flight. As such, flight
crews at RFDS ensure a maximum
diversion capability is maintained,
to ensure they can get patients safely
back to the base each and every time.
While the quintessential image of
the Flying Doctor is the saviour in an
emergency situation, the work done
by the service is extremely varied. In
fact, emergency aeromedical retrievals
form just one part of the work of the
RFDS in Queensland.
Other key activities include regular
visits to 85 remote communities, a
fly-in GP service that helps around
95,000 people and 6,500 remote
health clinics throughout Queensland.
This leads to a wide range of flight
profiles on any given day.
“On most clinic flights I fly with
a doctor and a nurse. We fly in the
morning, run the clinic and are back
home in time for dinner. On hospital
transfers, it’s often myself and a nurse,
while on the priority aeromedical
retrievals we will carry the medical
personnel that are required for each
specific situation, and we are away for
an unknown amount of time. Every
one of those retrievals is different and
we need to manage fatigue to keep
things safe.”

Important work

Fourteen Beechcraft King Air B200s
form the backbone of the Queensland
Section’s fleet. Fully pressurised they
are able to offer a stable ride, which
is important for both patient comfort
and the delivery of care.
Each aircraft contains a bespoke
medical fitout, transforming the
interior into a flying intensive care
unit. Two stretcher beds as well as an
array of associated medical equipment
make the cabin of the aircraft look like
a modern hospital, while the standard
passenger door has been replaced by a
custom cargo door allowing for quick
and easy loading of stretchers and
equipment.
The aircraft are equipped with
extra batteries as a backup for medical
equipment, an oxygen and suction
system and a special intercom that
links the cabin to the flightdeck for
communication inflight.
The complexity of this fitout along
with the nature of the work can be

FLYING THE DOCTORS
daunting to new starters at the RFDS.
However, Tully says that the training
provided to pilots at the Queensland
Section helps recruits learn to prepare
for the task at hand, which is key to a
successful flight.
“Someone’s life may depend on
you so it’s natural to want to rush out
and get going. But the only way to
ensure a successful flight is to take the
time needed to prepare. The training
at RFDS in Queensland prepares
us for this. Take a step back, take a
breath, plan the flight and complete
all the checks. That’s a big part of our
success.”
And despite years of real-life
experience, there are times when even
experienced RFDS pilots have to take
stock and remember their training,
especially when the retrieval is of a
critical nature.
“When you get a critical retrieval,
especially a child, it adds an extra layer
of stress to the team. The instinct is to
get going, quickly! But we have been
conditioned not to rush and put safety
first,” Tully explains.
“You don’t mess around; but we
go through the correct steps to plan
the flight as best we can to ensure
that once we arrive we can offer
the patient the highest chance of a
successful retrieval. That makes all the
difference.”

Successful challenges

Challenging flying conditions is
part of the job for RFDS pilots, and
goes hand in hand with the type of
work undertaken by the service. The
urgency of aeromedical retrievals can
often lead to landings in unexpected
places, or diversions inflight to pick up
victims of accidents and injuries.
“Dirt strips can be a challenge,
but that is what we are trained for.
Sometimes it might be an approved
road landing strip that the police will
close off for us in an emergency,” Tully
comments.
Fortunately, the RFDS maintains
a strong connection with the local
community in Queensland. This bond
ensures locals are willing and able to
assist when needed.
“Sometimes there’s no lights so we
are contacting the station or those on
the ground to light up a station strip
for us. Sometimes this is done with
tins filled with sand and diesel and
we’ve even had runway lights made up
of toilet rolls set alight to guide us in.”
And the complexity of the job
doesn’t stop with a successful
landing. Once the aircraft is safely
on the ground, the medical side of

the operation kicks into action. A
successful retrieval requires the total
commitment and cooperation from
the entire team, which is supported
by a positive and supportive culture at
the Queensland Section.

Rewarding career

The high intensity of aeromedical
retrievals is matched only by the
variety of the flight profiles that pilots
such as Nick Tully face. The Royal
Flying Doctor Service covers a vast
distance, with Queensland Section
handling fights to some of the most
remote locations in Australia.
“You get every different type of
flying when working for the Flying
Doctor and it goes from one extreme
to another,” Tully comments.
“On any given day we could be
taking off from a remote strip in the

N ick Tully in command of an
RFDS PC-12. The Queensland
Section no longer operates the
type, standardising on a fleet of
King Airs and Cessna Caravans.
rfds

bush and within a few hours we
could be on an ILS approach into
Brisbane International Airport.
That’s two extremely different
styles of flying but in the RFDS we
regularly get to experience that kind
of diversity.”
A big part of the success of the
Royal Flying Doctor in Queensland
over the last ninety years has been
the supportive culture that has
been built. From its headquarters
at Brisbane Airport out to the most
remote bases such as Mount Isa and
Longreach, the team works together
as one in an inclusive and open
atmosphere.
Nick Tully believes that such a
culture is essential when operating
the aircraft, as it ensures that pilots,
doctors and nurses are supported
which ultimately benefits the patient.
“RFDS in Queensland has
developed a very strong team culture.
Onboard the aircraft I may be the
only pilot but we aren’t alone –
there’s a nurse aboard every flight,
sometimes two, and on high priority
flights a doctor will fly with us too.
While the pilot gets on and flies the
aircraft, there’s a team approach to
the retrieval or transfer and this is all
designed to achieve the best results
and outcome for the patient.”
After all, a commitment to caring
for those in the bush by providing a
mantle of safety is the lasting legacy
of John Flynn; a legacy that is in
safe hands with Nick Tully and his
colleagues.

MARCH 2018 85

787 at 10

FROM 78
Boeing’s
787-10 and
the 787 at 10
WRITER: JOHN WALTON

86 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

A

s Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner
begins its second decade,
the promises that this first
composite airliner will fly
farther, cheaper and with less fuel
burn than previous generations have
been clearly demonstrated. 630
aircraft are currently in service with
45 airlines on every continent, with
Boeing citing 218 million passengers
over 2.9 billion revenue miles during
6.5 million revenue flight hours.
But beyond the numbers, the
787 has opened up numerous new

routes since its introduction, adding
weight to Boeing’s arguments about
the Dreamliner shifting the huband-spoke model towards point-topoint service, although Australia’s
position within Airbus A330 range
of China has meant that much of the
787 effect here has been adding new
nonstop hub flights rather than new
destinations.
A large part of Jetstar’s expanded
post-A330 international network has
developed since the introduction of
the 787, while offerings like United’s

new Sydney-Houston route, its
nonstop LA-Melbourne flight, Qantas’
upcoming Perth-London service, and
Air India’s Australia operation, rely on
the economics and performance of the
Dreamliner.
“The 787 has flown over 1,500 total
routes, and has made possible over
170 new nonstop routes to connect
the world like never before,” Boeing
regional director of product marketing
Tarun Hazari says.
“These are nonstop markets that
never existed. So network and fleet

9 TO 10
xxx.

planners basically started off from a
clean canvas and created these routes
that are now extremely profitable.”
The aircraft also continues to
enable changes for existing routes,
creating major efficiency gains when
replacing four-engined aircraft like
the Airbus A340-300 (LATAM) and
Boeing 747-400 (Qantas, United), or
allowing airlines capacity flexibility
compared with currently operating
twinjets like the A330-200/300 or
777-200ER (Vietnam Airlines, Japan
Airlines, Air New Zealand).

787-10 certification is the latest
chapter in the Dreamliner story

Boeing’s latest Dreamliner model, the
787-10, achieved its amended type
certificate for the Rolls-Royce Trent
1000-powered version from the US
Federal Aviation Administration
earlier this year.
“The certificate is a major
milestone,” Boeing’s Bob Whittington
explains, “as it officially clears the
airplane for commercial service. We
secured ATC on Friday, January 19,
after demonstrating the quality, safety,

and reliability of the type design.
Following first flights in March,
May, and June of 2017, our three
test airplanes were taken through
an assortment of tests to validate
our design, and to confirm handling,
systems, reliability, and overall
performance.”
“Our test programs spanned
about 900 flight hours, and took us
to a variety of locations including
the US states of Texas, California
and Colorado, to name a few, and
Newfoundland in Canada. We also

‘The 787 has
opened up
numerous
new routes.’

MARCH 2018 87

made two appearances at airshows in
Paris and Dubai,” he says.
“Throughout the test program the
airplanes operated as designed and
as expected. The 787-10 is over 95
per cent common with the -9. The test
program was smooth. We predicted a
quiet test program, and we delivered.
Our next steps are continue to work
with other validating agencies as we
work toward the first delivery to the
launch customer, Singapore Airlines
in the first half of the year. We’re
eager to fulfil our customer orders. We
currently have 171 orders in backlog
from nine leading customers.”
In addition to Singapore Airlines,
Air France, All Nippon Airways,
British Airways, Emirates, Etihad,
EVA Air, United Airlines, plus lessors
GECAS and Air Lease Corporation,
together with eight aircraft for
unidentified customer(s), have ordered
the jet.
For the 787-10, Whittington
explains, “we are complete with all
flight testing required for the delivery.
First delivery is to Singapore in the
Rolls-Royce family. There is a little
bit more testing to be done for the
GE-powered airplanes a little bit
later on. The typical way we certify
the airplanes, the FAA gives us our
amended type certificate, and has for

88 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

‘The -10 has
achieved over
95 per cent
commonality
with the -9x.’

The 787-8 is the shortest
member of the family. rob
finlayson

the 787-10. Beyond that, then each
of the airlines will get a validation
from their regulatory agencies prior
to taking delivery. So every foreign
carrier will line up with a new
validation program that’s unique to
each operator.”
(Boeing, in a financial quiet period
ahead of announcing its financial
results for 2017, was unable to provide
further detailed commentary on this
and other forward-looking issues, but
confirmed that the launch customer
for the version powered by General
Electric’s GEnx engines will be United
Airlines, with the airframer citing a
delivery window in the second half of
this year.)
Designed for long-haul, but not
ultra long-haul, flights, the -10’s
example range doesn’t quite reach the
US east coast from Sydney.
“The 787-10 Dreamliner is a game
changer to the market. It’s the newest
and longest member of our family.
As a stretch of the -9 airplane, it adds
a lot more seats and cargo capacity,
really setting a new benchmark for fuel
efficiency and operating economics. In
fact, it’s got the lowest CASM or cost
per available seat mile in the industry,”
Boeing’s Tarun Hazari argues.
“It’s capable of flying 330
passengers over 6,400 nautical miles,

or almost 12,000 kilometers. This
second derivative offers basically
25 per cent better fuel per seat and
emissions than the airplanes it
replaces, making it the absolute most
efficient twin available today.”
“When you combine it with all the
passenger pleasing features of the 787
family, which everyone’s familiar with
– the spacious cabin and windows,
the large bins, the higher humidity,
smooth ride technology – it truly is
second to none. It really accentuates
the family,” Hazari continues.
“Most noteworthy, however, from
an environmental perspective, our
planes have saved over 21 billion
pounds of fuel. The 787-10 will make
the perfect addition to the fleet,
unlocking enhanced efficiency never
before seen. We’re all eagerly awaiting
its first delivery and entry into service.”

The 787 family is flexible around
performance, both between and within
models
The launch 787-8, 57m long,
carries Boeing’s example case of
242 passengers in a two-class
configuration over 7,355nm. The midsized 787-9 measures 63m in length,
accommodating an indicative 290
passengers with a range of 7,635nm.
The newest aircraft, the 787-10, is

787 at 10
stretched to 68m and Boeing uses a
330-passenger model to give a range
of 6,430nm.
Commonality between models is
a concern for many operators, and
Boeing has seen success here. “We
heard from our customers quite clearly,
that they loved the -9, and the closer
we could make the -10 to both the -8
and the -9, the better off it would be,”
Boeing’s Bob Whittington explains.
“It clearly made our job easier in
the certification program. Having
the -10 be so close to the -9 allowed
us to shrink the flight test program
significantly.”
By contrast, as far as the percentage
goes between the 787‑8 and -9,
Boeing’s Tarun Hazari explains,
“it’s in the upper 70s as far as
commonality, when you talk about
the recommended spare parts list,
which is a benchmark that we use for
commonality. I would say as a family
we’re definitely in the low to mid 80s
combining the -8, -9, and -10. The -9
and -10, 95 per cent commonality, and
I would say upper 70s for the -8 and
-9. That’s an approximation.”
Returning to the passenger and
range numbers, for all airframers
these are both linked and indirectly
proportional – and also a little murky
in the part they play in manufacturers’
performance promises.
At its most simplest, the principle
is that the fewer passengers on board,
the greater the range. Jetstar’s 787-8,
for example, carries 21 passengers in
recliner business class seats and 314
in economy: 93 more than Boeing’s
example. Jetstar cites a range of
5,500nm for this aircraft, 1,855nm less
than Boeing’s standard data.
Japan Airlines, meanwhile, carries
only 161 passengers in its long-haul
787-8 configuration (where half the
aircraft is fully flat Rockwell Collins
Apex seats in business class, and
only one third is economy, with even
that the very spacious eight-abreast
configuration), 81 fewer than Boeing
and almost half of Jetstar’s capacity.
That allows JAL to quote a
range of 7,990nm for the aircraft,
nearly 2,500nm more than Jetstar,
almost the distance from Sydney or
Melbourne to Denpasar in Bali.
Weight has always been a crucial
consideration for airliners, particularly
long-haul jets. But these differences
in range highlight the extent to which
modern airlines make decisions about
outfitting their aircraft, and indeed
why Qantas needs a different aircraft
for its Project Sunrise ultra long-haul
nonstop ambitions.

“Orange you glad you ordered the
787?”

When Jetstar became the first airline
in Australasia – and one of the first
low-cost carriers in the world – to
fly the 787 in 2013, the aircraft
revolutionised the way that passengers
fly long-haul. Nearly seven million
passengers have flown on Jetstar’s
787s alone, travelling on routes to
Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, China,
and Honolulu in the United States.
“The ideal distance for our 787
fleet operationally and economically is
between 3,500 to 4,500nm”, Jetstar’s
787 team tells Australian Aviation via
an airline spokesperson.
“This aircraft has improved the
travel experience for our customers
and it has given us a competitive
advantage in the rapidly growing
Asian LCC sector,” the airline says.
“Our customers have been able to
enjoy the aircraft’s more space and
comfort, less noise, bigger windows,
gate to gate entertainment and the
best Jetstar service.”
On board the airline’s eleven 787-8
aircraft, three rows of large recliners
in a 2-3-2 configuration make up the
21 Jetstar business class seats, with the
314 economy class seats in their 3-3-3
layout stretch from ahead of doors two
to the very back of the cabin.
In addition to the operational
efficiency of newer, carbon-fibre
aircraft compared with the older
A330-200 jets the airline previously
operated, “from an operational point
of view, the introduction of the 787
has led to significantly lower use of
fuel with increased cruise speed and
higher altitude capability,” Jetstar

T he first 787-10 on the Boeing
Charleston final assembly line.
boeing

‘This aircraft
has improved
the travel
experience
for our
customers.’

says, noting that “the 787 also records
a better rate of successful approaches
in poor weather conditions, with
increased situational awareness for
flight crew through enhanced displays,
(eg, vertical profile display and headsup display).”
That operational knowledge is
already being transferred within
the Qantas Group ­– one marked
advantage of having a subsidiary
airline operate a new aircraft before
the parent carrier.
“Jetstar has been able to share the
experience with Qantas after four
years operating eleven Boeing 787‑8s.
Jetstar pilots have been training
Qantas pilots, both in the simulator
and on the line, and our engineers
have been sharing their learnings with
Qantas engineers on the maintenance
requirements of the aircraft,” the
airline explains.
The big question for Jetstar’s
Dreamliners is what’s next.
Competitors like Scoot have already
taken the larger 787-9 version that
Qantas is also taking, although
in February the Qantas Group
allowed one 787-9 option to lapse,
so immediate expansion for Jetstar’s
long-haul services seems unlikely.
That’s particularly true given the rise
in inbound traffic from international
carriers from growth destinations like
China.
Looking to the future for Jetstar’s
787 operations, “We’ll continue to
operate the 787 on our international
network. The Qantas Group has 45
options and purchase rights for the
787, which have flexible delivery dates
right through the next decade and the
MARCH 2018 89

flexibility to be deployed across the
Group.”
All in all, “the 787 aircraft have
been fundamental in the success of
Jetstar’s long-haul operation. They are
more fuel efficient, they require less
maintenance and, importantly, our
customers love them.”

Jetstar operates 11 787-8s. seth
jaworski

The 787’s passenger experience
continues to be a mixed bag

Previous generations of mostly
metallic airliners standardised on a
cabin pressurisation of approximately
8,000ft. Much of the altitude-related
malaise of flying, including jetlag,
dehydration and lower oxygen levels,
result from the combination of a
higher cabin altitude and low moisture
in the air.
New carbon fibre aircraft, of
which the 787 was the first, can be
pressurised to around 6,000ft, and
can handle a more humid atmosphere.
That 2,000ft reduction might not
sound much, and indeed when the
Dreamliner entered into service, early
passengers wondered whether the
promised benefits of the lower cabin
pressurisation would come true.
For the most part, they have. Quite
apart from manufacturer-produced
empirical data, the 787 and Airbus’s
A350 are in wide enough circulation
that passengers can compare like
for like flights and have felt it for
themselves.
The 787’s larger windows, too, have
proven largely popular, although the

90 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

‘The 787’s
larger
windows, too,
have proven
largely
popular.’

electronic dimming of the windows
does not always meet with passenger
acclaim, particularly since flight
attendants can override individual
controls and plunge the cabin into
total darkness.
Despite these improvements,
however, the 787 has not brought
an overall upgrade in passenger
experience for most passengers – quite
the opposite.
When Boeing originally advertised
the Dreamliner, it was with some
of the widest economy class seats
in the industry in an eight-abreast
configuration. Only ANA and Japan
Airlines took delivery of this layout,
and only JAL’s long-haul 787s remain
with seats arranged 2-4-2.
This densification is not unusual
in the history of commercial aviation.
The 747 was originally delivered to
many airlines in a nine-abreast layout
before being universally retrofitted to
3-4-3, as was the narrower 777. The
problem is that passengers are simply
not the size they were in the 777’s
1990s, let alone the 747’s 1960s. While
regional differences remain, better
nutrition and other factors mean that
people taking their first long-haul
flight on a 787 are taller and broader
than people whose first flight was on
a 747.
Indeed, the 787 in nine-abreast
configuration gives the least amount
of personal space of any widebody
airliner in widespread service. (Longhaul low-cost carriers and leisure

operators like AirAsia X, Cebu Pacific
or France’s Air Caraïbes operate nineabreast A330s and ten-abreast A350s
with narrower seats, but these are by
no means the primary configuration
for the A330 or A350.)
Airlines would, of course, argue
that with the advent of premium
economy passengers who want more
space have an option to buy it, and
the Dreamliner’s standard 2-3-2
premium economy configuration
is indeed very comfortable. From
the traveller perspective, however,
premium economy is between 1.5 and
3 times the price of economy on most
routes, a multiplier that is not feasible
for all or even many passengers — or
airlines would install more of these
seats. Indeed, numerous airlines and
airframers readily admit that premium
economy is the most profitable real
estate on the aircraft.
Business class too, is often tricky
on the Dreamliner. Early buyers of
the delayed aircraft ended up locked
into older seats that have not aged
well, with angled lie-flat seats and
fully flat beds that lack the now almost
mandatory direct aisle access ripe for
replacement.
The fact that the 787’s regular
maintenance intervals are further
apart is a benefit in many ways,
althought that does provide fewer
cabin upgrade windows.
In business class, the yields from
which often make the difference
between the success and failure

787 at 10
of a route, the cross-section of the
Dreamliner is notably narrower than
the slightly larger A350 and the much
larger 777. The narrower cabin creates
design, space and safety certification
challenges for airlines trying to
create direct aisle access products,
particularly those in the popular
herringbone configuration.
The passenger experience world
has moved on from where it was when
the size of the 787 was selected, and
like the 777 before it — where the
half-a-generation derivative 777X
will sculpt out extra inches from the
sidewalls — the time seems ripe for
cabin upgrades in particular.

Where next for the 787?

After more than a decade since rollout
and, next year, a decade since its first
flight, Boeing has yet to reveal any
kind of technology roadmap for the
787, whether for incremental cabin
interior updates or incorporating
improvements in systems and
technologies that have been developed
since the Dreamliner’s design was
finalised a decade and a half ago.
That is in contrast to the
approximate amount of time
between, for example, the Boeing
777’s 1995 entry into service for the

first generation (-200/-200ER/300),
second generation (-200LR, -300ER)
nine years later in 2004, and third
generation (-8/9) planned for 2019.
On the subject of the 777, Boeing’s
Tarun Hazari explains, “We’ve
continuously improved and made
those more valuable to our airline
based on customer needs. With the
787, we see the same thing happening.
We will continue to evolve. We will
continue to make “it better and even
more competitive”.
Referring back to the 767’s
passenger version’s development
– curtailed by the 787, with
many arguing then and now that

PERFECT TEN? The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000
awaits next generation

After major fleet groundings by operators of
Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners with “Package C”
Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, airlines
are anxiously awaiting deliveries of
replacements — whether of fixed older
Package C powerplants or the newer Trent
1000 TEN that succeeded it.
Fatigue cracking of turbine blades caused
by corrosion has caused significant early
blade wear and concern among operators.
Air New Zealand, All Nippon Airways and
Virgin Atlantic have been among the worst
affected.
“We identified an issue with sulphidation
on Intermediate Pressure Turbine (IPT)
Blades back in 2016,” a spokesperson for
Rolls-Royce tells Australian Aviation. “In
simple terms the part was affected by
corrosion fatigue, and therefore needed
replacing sooner than forecasted. We have
a modified standard for this blade which
is available both for new deliveries and for
engine overhaul. A long-term maintenance
plan was put in place for the replacement of
IPT blades and is ongoing today – the parts
are only replaced as required, depending
on usage. Since the IPT blade upgrade work
started we have identified a small number of
other improvements and checks that need to

be made to various populations of engines –
not all engines are affected by all issues.”
“Right now,” Boeing’s 787 chief project
engineer Bob Whittington notes, “of all the
operators across the fleet, it is primarily
limited to the Package C Rolls-Royce engine.
I don’t have the exact number... but you can
take it as all of the Rolls-Royce operators
across the fleet have seen some of the wear
out issues in the Rolls-Royce engine.”
In August, Rolls-Royce told investors
that the wear issues affected some 400‑500
of the Trent 1000 engines. Aviation safety
authorities continue to investigate and have
issued airworthiness directives concerning
these engines.
Boeing, Whittington says, is not shying
away from the issue. “I would take issue with
the idea that this is not a Boeing problem.
They’re Boeing customers, they’re Boeing
airplanes. And we’re deeply involved with
Rolls-Royce every single day to try to help
each of the operators get the airplanes back
flying as soon as possible.
“We’re engaged all the time. I do expect
the TEN engine to be their primary source,
the driver, in the fleet. But we’re working
really hard to get the airlines, like Air New
Zealand, back in the air. We understand how
difficult it is, and we’re linked very closely
with Rolls,” says Whittington.

simultaneous production of both
airliners would have been a smarter
move – Hazari says, “if you remember
back in the day with the 767, once the
777 came out, we came out with this
beautiful 767 Signature Interior that
really enhanced the cabin.”
“When we put that into the 767,”
Hazari notes, “the responses we got
back after we did the surveys and
the research studies much, much
preferred that interior compared to
the old 767 interior.”
“We see those things happening
with the 787 family, incremental
advancements and improvements, as
we’ve done with all of our models.”

“It’s not uncommon for long‑term
programs to experience these types of
issues and we are well placed to manage
them,” Rolls-Royce’s spokesperson says.
“Over the life of the Trent 1000 engine we
have accumulated Continuous Parameter
Logging data (an intensive form of engine
health monitoring) from over 100,000 flights
across six operators, giving us unparalleled
insight into the engine. When combined with
our typical engine health monitoring data,
this gives us a wealth of insight into the
performance of a specific engine, allowing
expert engineers in our Derby-based Aircraft
Availability Centre to ensure we undertake
maintenance as required and manage issues
proactively.”
However, Rolls-Royce concedes, “Despite
our absolute commitment to minimising
customer disruption, the removal rate of
engines has at times been higher than the
rate at which we’ve been able to recover
engines meaning that our customers have
experienced disruption. In these cases, we
have apologised to our customers. We expect
any disruption caused to gradually reduce
through 2018 and are taking additional
measures such as adding engines to our
lease pool to help relieve pressure in the
system.”

MARCH 2018 91

FINDING ANSWERS

FINDING
ANSWERS
Eye in the Sky GA black box
born out of heartbreak

WRITER: DENISE MCNABB

I

t comes as no surprise to Louisa
‘Choppy’ Patterson that preliminary
investigations have been unable to
fathom why a De Havilland Beaver
floatplane was off course and crashed
into the Hawkesbury River north of
Sydney, killing all six on board on New
Year’s Eve.
It’s yet another tragic aviation
accident that vindicates a decision by
the chief executive of Queenstownbased luxury helicopter tour operator,
Over the Top, to invest tens of
thousands of dollars in a “black box”
audio and video flight data recorder
for general aviation aircraft.
Called Eye in the Sky, it will be
launched in the first half of this
year, initially in Australia and the
United States at a cost of around
$NZ4,400 (A$4,053) per unit,
though Patterson says there will be an
introductory offer.
She dearly wishes the device, that
is little bigger than her hand, wasn’t
a necessary evil but she is pragmatic

92 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

even if it was born out of personal
heartbreak.
If it hadn’t been for the death of
her 18 year-old son, James Patterson
Gardener and 42 year-old Wanaka
pilot, Stephen Combe when a
Robinson R44 helicopter broke up in
the Lochy River Basin, northwest of
Queenstown in February 2015, Eye in
the Sky might have been a pipe dream.
“It’s a little bit like putting the
ambulance at the bottom of the cliff,
but since we’ve developed it to give
answers on this particular aircraft
there is a lot more positive things that
have come out of it,” Patterson says.
She has been involved in flight
training for many years and believes
light aircraft and helicopters will
benefit greatly from the recording
system as it not only finds causes of
air accidents in small aircraft, but it is
also a valuable tool for aviation safety
and education.
“It can tell engineers, for instance,
about the noise they can hear in an

E ye in the Sky view of the
helicopter cockpit. over the top –
the helicopter company

aircraft on shutdown. If a pilot has a
warmer start than anticipated it would
be good to be able to have a picture of
it,” she says.
“The actual benefits are enhancing
aviation and raising the safety bar as
a whole.
“Once you have a breakup of a
helicopter our device will be able to
prove the reason why. That’s why we
put the benefit of the identifying cause
of accidents and reoccurrence at the
bottom of the list of benefits.
“If a pilot is aware he has a flight
data recorder in his aircraft it may
mean that he flies slightly higher or
adheres to the rules slightly more. It’s
a consideration he has to make if he
is going to fly low or possibly break a
rule.”
After her son’s accident New
Zealand’s 80 Robinson R44s were
grounded because a portion of the
blade was found a distance from the
aircraft. The ban was lifted a few days
later after blade disintegration was

deemed a consequence, not a cause of
the accident.
The New Zealand Transport
Accident Investigation Commission
(TAIC) concluded the crash was due to
mast bumping – where the inner part
of the blade bumps the mast, be it as
a result of turbulence, stalling or for
another reason.
There was no conclusive proof this
was the cause and Patterson is not
convinced.
“We are yet to establish that cause
in our own mind and we are having
some second tests done on the blade,”
she says.
“As an aviator of some 45 years
I believed that if an aircraft has a
problem and a pilot puts in a control
that will make it catastrophic and the
aircraft won’t return to normal flight
mode then it shouldn’t be certified to
fly.
“The implications are [from the
crash] that a control input was put
into the aircraft, which could have

‘Our device
will be able
to prove the
reason why.’
LOUISA PATTERSON

resulted in this catastrophic failure.
“The bottom line is that aircraft
do not break up in flight and this
helicopter broke up in flight and they
continue to do so,” says Patterson,
citing 147 Robinson R44 aircraft
accidents since her son’s death with
around 23 having unexplained
breakups.
She says Robinson was positive
about Eye in the Sky and was talking
about developing its own version or
joining forces with her company.
“They are encouraging their use
but I am not sure about their theory as
they feel the accident was pilot input.
We will find out unfortunately.”

Foundation

On her wrist Patterson wears a blue
band inscribed in white in Ancient
Greek, which translated to English
says, “ever to excel”.
It is a daily and poignant reminder
of her son who was due to take up
residence at St Andrew’s College at

the University of Sydney to study
engineering two days after that fateful
flight.
The phrase is also the motto of
the James PG Foundation Patterson
created in her son’s memory.
Profits from the sale of the Eye in
the Sky will go to the foundation to
enable youth with the potential to
excel in their chosen field to attend
University of Sydney as James had
intended.
The foundation was launched
recently with income from other areas
of the business.
Patterson says it will open doors
to young people of all levels who are
trying to reach their full potential,
whether it be working in the aviation
industry or where someone requires
endorsement or sponsorship in a
particular company.
“Through our contacts we will
assist youth whether it be financial,
philanthropic, or beneficial.”

MARCH 2018 93

worth a thousand words, but a video is
priceless.”
Patterson and Collier will be back
at the heli-expo in Las Vegas in March,
followed by the Australian Helicopter
Industry Association’s Rotortech expo
on the Sunshine Coast in May.
“Potentially the first market is
helicopters, then planes, Patterson says.
“But there is potential for all sorts
of things from engineering to training
incidents and complaints.”

Legally speaking

Development

The TAIC report into the R44 accident
suggested it would be a good idea
for cameras to be installed in small
aircraft.
By the time that report came out
Patterson was well into developing
Eye in the Sky.
“Quite soon after James and Steve’s
death it became obvious that if we
had had an apparatus in the aircraft it
would have answered all the questions,
in particular being able to look at the
controls where the pilots’ inputs are,”
she says.
“We began working with the
authorities on how we were going to
make this work.”
The first consideration was getting
a supplementary type certificate (STC)
to allow the device to be fitted in
aircraft.
Over the Top’s pilot and product
developer, Brad Collier, says the STC
process is expensive and technical.
“We’ve employed a lot of help to
assist us getting this civil aviation (NZ
CAA) authorisation.”
It is now getting authorisation in
other countries.
Black boxes (actually aviation safety
orange), housed in the tail of large
aircraft record cockpit instruments
and conversations between the pilot
and co-pilot but they do not have
cameras.
Patterson describes Eye in the
Sky as a small, technically-advanced
version of the large black box in that it
has both audio and video components.
“In the past few years cameras have
become more prominent in one’s life

94 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Louisa ‘Choppy’ Patterson
with her Eye in the Sky flight
data recorder. over the top – the
helicopter company

whether you are in a taxi or a lift or
anywhere really.”
“We’re taking this way beyond the
traditional idea of a black box.”
The device was originally black,
but following feedback from countries
such as Papua New Guinea about
regulatory colours for aviation it was
changed recently to orange.

Heli-Expo

One chap
with 80
aircraft
wanted them
for his entire
fleet.
LOUISA PATTERSON

Patterson and Collier introduced
Eye in the Sky to the industry at the
helicopter industry’s largest event, the
Hai Heli-Expo in Dallas last year.
“We went there to gauge interest
and promote the product and got a lot
of positive feedback that has helped
shape the final version that we have
today,” Patterson says.
“One chap with 80 aircraft on the
east coast of America wanted them for
his entire fleet. He told us a picture is

Over the Top uses America’s Rugged
Video unit in its helicopters to
showcase customers inside and
outside the helicopter and at the end
of the trip they are given the footage
on a USB stick.
Patterson says Eye in the Sky is
not designed for that sort of output.
Secured high in the cockpit behind
the front two people it films in high
definition video the control panel
and the control inputs so it can’t take
footage of outside those parameters
that might threaten breaches of
privacy.
“You won’t even necessarily get a
view out the front of the helicopter,”
Collier says.
Because the STC designates
the unit as a flight data recorder it
would be available to air accident
investigators, but like the large black
box, not to the courts as evidence in a
prosecution.
“That in itself encourages people
to install it because it is there for
safety not for prosecution purposes,”
Patterson says.
But she says if there were a
situation where a company was
thought to be breaking some rules it
wouldn’t stop Civil Aviation looking
at the footage with the onus on the
operator to provide it, not the pilot.

FINDING ANSWERS
Technicalities

Patterson has worked with New
Zealand, American and Chinese
companies and has visited China
and the US in her journey to get
the final product to assembly stage.
She declined to reveal who they are
because it was propriety information,
except to say they were in the high
definition video field, had expertise
for the required submersible
detection and metallurgic experts
helped with the case.
The battery runs off the
helicopter’s power when it is turned
on and goes off when the helicopter
engine is turned off.
In the event of electrical failure
the battery will run for a certain
period before it stops recording over
an SD card in the unit. Depending on
the size of the SD card it will run for
up to 60 hours.
“Eye in the Sky records ambient
audio as it has its own microphone
so it will pick up any noise from the
engine. It is also plumbed in directly
to the pilot’s aviation audio panel so
anything the pilot hears and says,
whether it be from the cockpit or
the radio call, is also captured on a
separate channel,” Collier says.
If, for example, there was an
incident involving air traffic control
it would pick up something a pilot
might be saying to another pilot and
what air traffic control might be
saying to that aircraft.
“This obviously has benefits in
post-incident analysis,” Patterson
says.
The casing is made of high grade
metal to a level where data could still
be taken off a card if the unit was
involved in a fire.
Patterson and Collier met with
representatives of a company recently
that says it can make a casing for the
unit that will withstand very high
temperatures. It will be incorporated
into a later batch and provide an
option to have the fireproof casing go
around the present casing.
As part of the STC process
the unit must also pass an audio
interference analysis check, an
electrical load analysis check
and electronic engine control
approval.
All of the mounts are load
certified and tested. The mounting
and wiring for the aircraft comes
with the package and each unit is
part and serial numbered. It also
comes with an SD card and a special
tool to remove the unit’s cover,
making it tamper-proof.

To market

Collier says while flight data recorders
have been around for a long time they
are expensive and bulky and it’s taken
a while for some of those ideas to filter
down to light aircraft.
He also suspects some people flying
helicopters and recreational aircraft
might not have liked the idea of being
accountable for flying low on occasions
when they shouldn’t have been.
“I think we are the only one doing it
cost-effectively,” Patterson says.
“We will have them to market
within the first half of this year but
we’ll take orders earlier than that. We
are just waiting on some paperwork
from various testing people.”
She won’t make a forecast on
potential sales.
“It depends on where they go,
what they put them in and what the
authorities say.”
Wearing a tourism hat she says
can also say to the major suppliers of

T he Eye in the Sky flight data
recorder in an Over the Top –The
Helicopter Company helicopter
at Queenstown Airport. denise
mcnabb

her tourism clients that because her
company has Eye in the Sky in its
helicopters they should mandate that
they be fitted to other aircraft they
supply tourists to as well.
The final prototype came back
from the US recently after testing
revealed anomalies with two audio
channels, but with these sorted the
green light is fast approaching.
“If it takes off I think the
foundation would benefit immensely
and a lot of young people in New
Zealand and Australia will reap the
benefit,” Patterson says.
“I feel personally that if we sold
one unit and it was in the right
aircraft then I would have done my
bit for aviation and particularly, in
honour of my son.”
Patterson says the foundation
is pretty much her long-term
project.

More details at: www.eyeinthesky.co.nz
MARCH 2018 95

xxAxx
RACER’S EDGE
MATT HALL

The right decisions

A new season, and new challenges, demand the right approach

A

T he Matt Hall Racing Team is
ready to face the challenges of
a new season. predrag vuckovic/red
bull content pool

s I was sitting on the start grid
ahead of the third and final
practice session of the first
round of the Red Bull Air Race
World Championship in Abu Dhabi,
United Arab Emirates, I watched the
UAE Air Force display team arrive in a
seven-ship formation.
I reflect on my time in the military,
and whether I miss it. The respect
for others who serve their country is
hardwired into my brain.
My life as a fighter pilot in the
Royal Australian Air Force more often
than not pays dividends in my current
life as a Red Bull Air Race pilot.
Precise planning and preparation,
mental fortitude and strong teamwork
are all things that win races. And for
us, months and months of preparation
usually comes down to around 55
seconds in a racetrack. Similar
timelines for a single bombing run in a
modern day fighter.
When it all goes to plan, there is
no better feeling. When it doesn’t,

the hindsight of what you could have,
should have or would have done will
keep you awake at night – or on the
14-hour flight home to Australia.
The first race in Abu Dhabi did and
didn’t go to plan. We finished fifth,
which was a great result and my best
finish there since I was second in 2015.
On the other hand, there were a few
things that popped up throughout our
time in the Emirates that threatened
to hinder us.
Unfortunately, those hindrances
were reflective of the past few months
spent preparing for this race season,
and meant I needed to draw on much
of my experience to get to race one of
2018.
Rewind the clock back to October
2017; we’ve finished the season off
with everything looking bright for
the year ahead. Our race team have
had podiums in the back half of the
season, we’ve won qualifying sessions
and overall everyone on the team has
gelled seamlessly.

We depart each other’s company
for a few weeks, and then in late
November my race tactician Peter
Wezenbeek, technician Ron Simard
and I are back together in northern
California refining our race plane.
Everything goes well, we improve
handling and speed and leave prior
to Christmas knowing that we will
be damned fast come 2018. Over
the break the plane will also go into
a paint shop to be stripped and repainted in new colours.
It’s a big job to re-brand one of
these race planes in just a few weeks,
but we’re all relatively relaxed that the
job will come out well, and that the
team will power into 2018.
On December 17 2017 I have my
entire team with me – including
those who are part of the Aussiebased Team MHR operation. All
that is, except Ron, who is at home
with his wife in Panama. We’ve gone
out for the afternoon on a boat on
Lake Macquarie, NSW to celebrate a

predrag vuckovic/red bull content pool

challenging, and yet rewarding season.
Everything is good.
Three days later that equilibrium
is broken when I learn that Ron has
had a plane crash in Panama City and
sadly lost his life. It’s a shock to the
system and no matter how long you’re
involved in aviation, this side of it
never gets easier.
My primary concern is Ron’s wife,
family and then informing my team of
this awful news.
As suddenly as that news hit me,
there is a part of me that kicks into
action and my mind is racing:
• We’re three weeks out from our
newly painted aircraft needing to be
shipped to Abu Dhabi for round one of
the season.
• Our plan to head back to the USA
and re-build the plane, test fly it and
then pack it for shipping will need to
change.
• I will need to find someone to fill
Ron’s shoes on the team.
And so the MHR team and I get
to work analysing our best course of
action. At this stage, there may have
been a race scheduled for the end of
January, but that won’t be a factor
unless we can plan a solution and keep
our heads on straight to make the
right decisions.
As it happens, the best decision
for the team is that instead of
scrambling to find a race technician
with experience and luring them back
to the air race, the logical fit will be

to bring in newly appointed domestic
technician David Finch to the racing
arm of the business too.
Just like that ‘Finchy’ will be going
on the road with us, which is a slight
change of pace following 12 dedicated
years at the Temora Aviation Museum.
With personnel sorted, for me it was
back to the USA to tick off a list of
items that need attending to, including
the build and shipping of my race
plane.
It isn’t until I arrive back home, two
weeks out from the new race season
that the events of the past few weeks
sink in. My mind finally shifts back a
few gears.
Ron was 72, or 18 with 54 years
of experience, as he liked to say,
at the time of his death. He was a
hard-core racer, had a sharp mind
and undoubtedly would be looking
down and telling us to get on with the
business of racing to win.
So that’s what we aimed for
in round one at the beginning of
February, even if the best laid plans
of the early off-season were slowly
starting to unravel.
Our new paint job is heavy; the
centre of gravity has moved three
per cent towards the tail. The ridges
in the paint disturb the airflow, and
overall it made the aircraft a handful.
It wasn’t the silky smooth machine in
Abu Dhabi that it was in 2017.
That’s not an excuse; these were the
cards we had to play with. As intended

we put our best foot forward in Abu
Dhabi. We arrived with a plan and
adapted it as needed. Unfortunately
the result wasn’t what we hoped,
despite our efforts.
And so with two months in our
pocket before round two of the series
in Cannes, France, we left the Middle
East with a plan. It’s not a plan
that we hope works, but one we are
confident will provide solutions.
During my military career I had
absolute trust in my colleagues,
there’s no option but to have such
a mentality. When I watched those
serving for the UAE flying past me
ahead of that third practice session,
I could see the trust they had in each
other also.
It’s the same trust I have in my
team now. Even when the world
outside the cockpit isn’t as it was
intended to be.
When a setback or unexpected
problem rears its head, a good aviator
has a plan, and can calmly analyse the
best course of action. The next time I
find myself on the Red Bull Air Race
start grid preparing for practice three,
I have absolute faith that our team will
have addressed the deficiencies of race
one to improve what we can achieve.
Once again, we’ll fly with the
aim of being the best we can with
the equipment we have, and the
knowledge that we have a strong
foundation on which to build our
season.

R ound one of the Red Bull Air
Race provided plenty of food
for thought. xalazs gardi/red bull
content pool

‘That’s not
an excuse;
it’s the cards
we had to
play with.’
MARCH 2018 97

Traffic

Key aircraft movements
from across the region

WRITER: GORDON REID

Hi-Fly A330-223 CS-TQW in service with Air
New Zealand and wearing a special colour
scheme ‘Clean Seas - Turn the Tide on Plastic’.
duncan watkinson

QANTAS GROUP NEWS

In this issue we report the delivery
of two 787-9s to Qantas.
787-9 VH-ZNB Waltzing Matilda
was delivered to Qantas in
Melbourne on December 10 after
it ferried in from Paine Field as
QF6026. VH-ZNB entered service
with Qantas on December 14 as
QF414 from Melbourne to Sydney
and operated its first international
service on December 16 as QF95
from Melbourne to Los Angeles.
787-9 VH-ZNC Quokka was
registered to Qantas on
December 20 and operated its
maiden flight on January 12 as
‘Boeing 271’ from Paine Field to
Moses Lake and return. VH-ZNC
was then delivered to Melbourne
from Paine Field as QF6026 on
January 24 and entered service
on January 29 when it operated
QF775 from Melbourne to Perth.
787-9 VH-ZNA operated its
first international flight on
December 15 when it operated
QF95 from Melbourne to Los
Angeles.
787-9 VH-ZND msn 63390/669
is planned for delivery in early

98 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

March and will be painted in an
indigenous design.
747-438ER VH-OEF operated a scenic
charter flight from Melbourne over
the Antarctic on December 31/
January 1 as QF2904.
737-838 VH-VYJ ferried from
Brisbane to Townsville as QF6101
on January 1 where it was painted
in the new Qantas colours. It
returned to service on January 21
as QF967 from Townsville to
Brisbane.
737-838 VH-VZB operated QF978
on January 20 from Brisbane to
Townsville where on arrival it
entered the Flying Colours hangar
for painting in the new Qantas
livery.
QantasLink had Dash 8-402Q VH-QOB
painted by Flying Colours in
Townsville between January 4 and
January 17, while Dash 8-402Q
VH-QOC arrived at Townsville
from Mount Isa as QF2475 on
January 16 for painting.
Jetstar Pacific took delivery of
A320-232 VN-A577 msn 7988 in Ho Chi
Minh City on January 10 after the
aircraft ferried in from Toulouse
and Al Maktoum.

AIRLINE NEWS

In this issue we report the
delivery of two Fokker 100s to
Alliance, an RJ100 to Cobham
and a BAe 146‑200QT to Pionair
Australia. Departing was an
ATR 72-500 of ANZ Link.
Air New Zealand grounded
787-9 ZK-NZD on December 6, 787-9
ZK-NZE on December 4 and 787-9
ZK-NZH on December 6 due to engine
problems.
To cover the down time with
the 787-9 Air New Zealand wet
leased aircraft from Hi Fly of
Portugal.
A340-313X 9H-FOX, which was
all-white, ferried into Auckland
from Lisbon and Los Angeles as
HFM671P on December 12 and
entered service on December 15
when it operated NZ101 from
Auckland to Sydney.
A330-223 CS-TQW ferried into
Auckland on December 15 as
HFM411P from Kingston, Jamaica
and Papeete. CS-TQW, which
carried a special colour scheme
‘Clean Seas - Turn the Tide on
Plastic’, entered service with Air
New Zealand on December 16

when it operated NZ175 from
Auckland to Perth. CS-TQW
was withdrawn from Air New
Zealand service on January 15
after operating NZ175 from Perth
to Auckland (arriving January 16)
and departed Auckland for
Panama City as HFM361P on
January 20.
Air New Zealand then leased
A340-313X 9H-SUN from Hi Fly and
on January 15 as HFM011P it
arrived in Auckland from Cairo
and Halim. 9H-SUN entered
service with Air New Zealand
on January 16 when it operated
NZ175 from Auckland to Perth.
ANZ Link/Mount Cook withdrew
ATR 72-500 ZK-MCW from service on
November 26 (Traffic/January)
with the aircraft then having
its titles and the koru removed.
ZK-MCW, which was ferried
by Southern Cross as SXI1814,
departed Christchurch on
January 5 for Brisbane, Darwin
and Jakarta where it was
prepared for delivery to Novoair.
The ATR, now registered S2-AJK,
departed Jakarta on January 29
for Subang and Dhaka.

Traffic

New arrival for Alliance Airlines, Fokker 100
OE-IIC. lance broad
ANZ Link/Eagle Airways ferried their
Beech 1900D ZK-EAE into Bankstown on
October 18 ’16 with the aircraft
then being registered VH-OYV on
November 29 ’16.
VH-OYV then remained parked
at Bankstown until January 24
when it departed for the Gold
Coast and after overnighting it
continued on ferry to South
America via Apia, Papeete and
Easter Island.
Airwork Flight Operations reportedly
took delivery of 757-223 N689AA at
Goodyear, Arizona on December 8
after the aircraft ferried in
from Roswell, New Mexico.
At Goodyear the 757 will be
converted to a freighter.
Fokker F27-500s ZK-PAX and ZK-POH,
which were stored at Auckland,
have been sold to HARS. ZK-PAX,
which was cancelled from the New
Zealand register on January 16,
was then registered VH-EWH to
HARS of Albion Park Rail, NSW
on January 18. ZK-POH was also
cancelled from the New Zealand
register on January 16 and on
January 18 it was registered to
HARS as VH-TQN.
Alliance Airlines took delivery
of Fokker 100 OE-IIC msn 11406 at
Brisbane on December 16 after the
aircraft ferried in from Kupang.
It was registered VH-VIF on
December 19 with the owner
VIF Aircraft of Sydney and the
operator Alliance Airlines of Eagle
Farm. VH-VIF will enter service
in mid 2018 in the high end
charter aircraft market.
Alliance took delivery of
Fokker 100 VH-FGB at Brisbane on
January 17. The ferry flight was
operated by Southern Cross as
SXI1801 from Norwich, UK to
Brisbane initially via Trabzon and
Al Ain and latterly via Kupang
and Townsville. VH‑FGB was
previously registered VH‑UQG
and carries a special colour
scheme commemorating the
90th anniversary of the first
trans‑Pacific flight.
Cobham Aviation took delivery of
RJ100 G-CFAH msn E-3384 at Adelaide
on January 18 after the aircraft
completed its ferry flight from
Cranfield, UK via Denpasar
and Darwin. It was registered
VH‑NJE to Cobham Aviation on
January 24.
JetGo will reportedly take
delivery of ERJ-140LR VH-JGK msn
145318 ex N14923 in February.
Pionair Australia took delivery of

In this issue we report the delivery
of a 737-800 to Virgin Australia
and the departure of the airline’s
last E190.
Virgin Australia registered 737-800
VH-YWE msn 41015 on January 3 and
on January 21 as ‘Boeing 827’ it
made its first flight from Renton
to Moses Lake and Boeing Field.
VH-YWE Dreamtime Beach
was delivered to Brisbane on
January 31 as VOZ9940 from
Boeing Field, Kona and Nadi.
EMB 190-100IGW VH-ZPT was
withdrawn from service on
December 30 after operating
VOZ642 from Sydney to Canberra
and later that day VH-ZPT was
ferried from Canberra to Brisbane
as VOZ9901. As VOZ9941 it was
later ferried from Brisbane to
Darwin and Clark Field in the
Philippines.
E190-100IGW VH-ZPH, which is the
last of type in the Virgin fleet,
was withdrawn from service in
Brisbane on February 3 after
operating VA1105 from Newcastle.
A330-243 VH-XFC departed

Melbourne for Singapore as
VOZ9943 on January 16 for
planned maintenance.

Virgin Australia Regional Airlines/VARA
ferried Fokker 100 VH-FZI as VOZ9941
from Perth to Port Hedland and
Seletar on January 7 for planned
maintenance.
ATR 72-600 VH-FVZ, which was
damaged in a hard landing
at Canberra on November 19,
remained there until January 24
when it was ferried to Brisbane as
VOZ9907.

REGIONAL AIRLINE NEWS

In this issue we report the delivery
of two ATR 72-600s to Air
Caledonie, two Saab 340s to Air
Chathams and a Cessna 208B to
Great Barrier Air. Departing was
an ATR 72-500 of Air Caledonie.
Air Caledonie took delivery
of ATR 72‑600 F-OZKN msn 1459
at Noumea/La Tontouta on
December 16 after the aircraft
ferried in from Toulouse via
Seletar, Broome and Cairns.
ATR 72-600 F-OZNO msn 1472 was
delivered to Air Caledonie at
Noumea on December 23 after the
aircraft ferried in from Toulouse
via Seletar, Broome and Cairns.
Air Caledonie has withdrawn
ATR 72-500 F-OIPS from service on
termination of its lease and on

January 19 now registered 9N-AMF
the ATR departed Noumea for
Cairns, Kupang and Seletar where
it was prepared for delivery to
Buddha Air of Nepal.
Air Chathams took delivery of
Saab 340A(QC) N135GU msn 340A-135
at Auckland on January 9 after
the aircraft, which was previously
operated by Skydive Guam, ferried
in from Guam and Honiara. The
Saab was registered ZK-CIY to Air
Chathams on January 24.
Saab 340B N357GU msn 340B-357
was also operated by Skydive
Guam and was delivered to
Air Chathams at Auckland on
January 13 after it ferried in
from Guam and Honiara. It was
registered to Air Chathams as
ZK‑CIZ on January 24.
Convair 580 ZK-KFJ was cancelled
from the NZ register on
January 29 as ‘withdrawn from
use’.
Air Kiribati took delivery of
Dash 8-102A C-GRXH msn 388 at Tarawa
on October 30 (Traffic/December)
and by December 1 had registered
the aircraft T3-AKA.
Air Sanga has added DHC-6-200
P2‑ASL to its fleet. The Twin Otter,
then registered P2-MCR, was
previously operated by PNG Air.
Fiji Link took delivery of DHC-6-400
C-GUVT on October 30 (Traffic/
MARCH 2018 99

Air Caledonie has withdrawn ATR 72-500 F-OIPS
from service. It is pictured here transiting Cairns,
bound for Seletar. andrew belczacki
December) and later registered
the aircraft DQ-FJS.
DHC-6-400 DQ-FJQ msn 959 ex
C-FZVM and DHC-6-400 DQ-FJR
msn 961 ex C-GVSW are planned
for delivery to Fiji Link.
Great Barrier Air took delivery of
Cessna 208B N2057 msn 208B2057 at
Auckland on January 19. The ferry
flight was operated by Rangeflyers
and had earlier departed Wichita
on January 11 for Auckland via
Santa Maria, Hilo and Apia. The
aircraft was registered to Great
Barrier Air on January 24 as
ZK‑SDC.
Sharp Airlines took delivery of
Metro 23 VH-OYN at Launceston on
December 10 after the former
Pearl Aviation Australia aircraft
ferried in from Darwin and the
Gold Coast. On December 18
VH‑OYN was ferried from
Launceston to Adelaide and
the following day it entered
service flying from Adelaide to
Challenger.
Metro 23 VH-OYG changed operators
on November 13 from Pearl
Aviation to Sharp Airlines.

BIZJET NEWS

In this issue we report the
delivery of a Global Express and a
Challenger 650.
Global Express VH-UPH msn 9281
was delivered to Bluefield P/L of

Abbotsford, Victoria at Melbourne
on November 16.
Challenger 650 VH-LEF msn 6100 was
registered on December 7 with
the owner Linfox Express Charter
of South Melbourne and the
operator Air National Australia of
Essendon Fields. VH-LEF is the
first of type in the region and was
delivered to Essendon from Nadi
on December 10.
In propjet news King Air 350i N817AP
msn FL-1017, which was delivered
to Bankstown on August 15
(Traffic/October), was ferried to
Cairns on November 26 where it
was registered VH-ZPE to Hawker
Pacific on December 18.
King Air 350i N5062T msn FL-962,
which was delivered to Bankstown
on December 20 from Biak and
Cairns, was registered VH-ZPG to
Hawker Pacific on January 4.
King Air 350i N979KA msn FL-979,
which was delivered to Bankstown
on December 18 from the US via
Saipan, Biak and Cairns, was
registered VH-ZPJ to Hawker Pacific
on January 4.
King Air 350 VH-NDT departed
Toowoomba on November 11 for
Mount Isa, Darwin and Denpasar
where it arrived on November 12.
It was later reported arriving at
Chester, UK on November 23
after arriving from Karlovy Vary
in the Czech Republic. VH-NDT

was cancelled from the register on
November 29 when sold in Canada.
King Air B200 F-OIAA msn BB-932,
which was delivered to Perth on
October 18 (Traffic/December),
was registered VH-PFT to Airflite of
Perth Airport on December 12.
Aero Rescue King Air 200T VH-OYT,
which had been in storage at
Darwin, was cancelled from the
register on December 11.

FERRY FLIGHTS

Monashee Helicopters Bell 212 C-GSRH
had been unloaded from a Cathay
Pacific freighter at Toowoomba/
Wellcamp and was later assembled
at Casino. On January 27 C-GSRH
departed Casino for Redcliffe and
the following day it was noted at
Townsville, Cairns, Lockhart River
and Horn Island on its way to
operations in PNG.
Nautilus Aviation Bell 505s
VH‑VSB msn 65030 and VH-VTB
msn 65031 arrived at Bankstown
in containers on December 4.
Cessna 208B/EX N85PF msn 208B5407
completed its trans-Pacific ferry
at Cairns on December 22 when
it arrived from Wichita via Santa
Maria, Honolulu and Majuro.
Cessna 208B/EX VH-PQX ex N85PF
was registered to the State of
Queensland on January 24.
Pacific Air Holdings Cessna 208B
N842PH msn 208B1174 ex VH‑IOV

New Cobham Aviation
RJ100 G-CFAH arrives into
Adelaide on January 18.
ryan hothersall

was noted at Moorabbin on
December 13 and it remained
there until January 23 when it
departed for Charleville, Cairns,
Horn Island and Biak, where it
arrived on January 24.
SkyWest Aviation of
Albuquerque Cessna 340 N1022W
arrived at Broome from Johor
Bahru on December 19. The
Cessna was later noted at
Carnarvon, Ceduna, Port Lincoln,
Launceston, Essendon, Portland,
Flinders Island, Burnie and
Lilydale before continuing to
Coldstream on January 6.
DHC-6-400FP N153QS arrived
at Brisbane from Nadi and
Noumea on January 8 and after
overnighting continued to Mackay
and Cairns.
PAC-750XL ZK-KDJ msn 207, which
returned to Hamilton from
Darwin on November 23 (Traffic/
January-February), departed
again from Hamilton on
December 9 for the Gold Coast,
Longreach, Darwin and Manado
and onward delivery to the
Chinese Sport Parachute Industry.
RAAF Pilatus PC-21 HB-HWK
c/s PCH44R in company with
Pilatus PC-21 HB-HWL c/s PCH44R
arrived at RAAF East Sale on
January 22 after ferrying in
from Stans, Switzerland via
Kupang, Darwin, Alice Springs
and Adelaide. The two aircraft
have since been allocated RAAF
serial numbers A54-011 and A54-012
respectively.
Commander N9116N, which was
delivered to Essendon on
December 5 (Traffic/January),
was registered VH-XAS to Kennedy
Aviation of Gunnedah on
January 25.
Thai Aviation Services
Sikorsky S-92A HS-HTH, which had
been in maintenance with
Sikorsky Helitech (Traffic/
November), departed Brisbane
on December 25 for Emerald and
Normanton before continuing to
Groote Eylandt and Darwin on
December 26.

HEAVY METAL

Global Jet Luxembourg A319-115(CJ)
P4-MIS arrived in Sydney from
Kansai on December 29 before
continuing to Queenstown
on January 1. It then arrived
in Brisbane from Dunedin on
January 4 before continuing the
same day to Mackay. On January 8
P4-MIS departed Mackay for

100 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Traffic
Hamilton Island, Cairns and
Honolulu.
RMAF A319-115(CJ) 9M-NAA
was noted at Melbourne on
December 24 before continuing
to Perth on December 29. It
departed Perth for Kuala Lumpur
on January 2.
Air X Charter A340-313X 9H-BIG
arrived in Perth from Cape Town
on February 1 as flight AXY3102
and departed to Al Maktoum as
AXY3202 on February 2.
Ukraine Air Alliance An-12BP
UR-CGV as UKL5060 arrived in
Perth from Johor Bahru on
December 28 and departed in the
early hours of December 29 as
UKL5061 to Johor Bahru.
Antonov Airlines An-124 UR-82007 as
ADB2355 arrived in Port Hedland
from Shanghai on January 23
and continued to Perth on
January 24. It departed Perth for
RAAF Scherger and Cairns on
January 25 before continuing as
ADB308F to Phu Cat, Vietnam on
January 30.
Antonov Airlines An-124 UR-82008
as ADB2302 arrived in Adelaide
from Honolulu and Brisbane on
December 12 and later the same
day as ADB206F departed to
Mattala, Sri Lanka.
Antonov Airlines An-124 UR-82073
as ADB2303 arrived in Adelaide
from Honolulu and Brisbane on
December 19 before departing the
same day to Mattala as ADB206F.
An-124 UR-82073 later arrived in
Perth on January 25 as ADB2346
from Johor Bahru and Darwin
and as ADB246F departed for
Johor Bahru on January 26.
CGG Aviation (Canada) Basler
BT-67 C-GGSU arrived at Port Moresby
from Ambon on January 26. The
BT-67, which was noted crossing
the North Atlantic from Iqaluit
to Reykjavik on January 12, was
later seen at Southampton, UK on
January 16.
Crystal Luxury Air 777-29M(LR)
P4-XTL operating as CXB772 arrived
in Sydney from Singapore on
December 30 and departed to
Honolulu on January 1.
Silk Air 737 MAX 8 9V-MBC operated
the inaugural service by type into
Australia on January 7 when it
operated SLK801/802 SingaporeDarwin-Singapore.
RAAF P-8A A47-006 was
delivered to RAAF Edinburgh
on January 15 from Renton via
Honolulu and Guam.
Coulson EC-130Q N130FF ‘Bomber

Antonov Airlines An-124 UR-82007 departs Cairns on January 30
bound for Phu Cat, Vietnam. andrew belczacki
390’ arrived at Avalon on
January 4 from Majuro and
Brisbane as a replacement for
Lockheed L-382G N405LC – see
below.
Coulson L-382G N405LC callsign
‘BMR132’, which arrived at
Richmond on August 26 (Traffic/

October), was later moved south
to Avalon. It remained on firewatch at Avalon until January 6
when it departed for Cairns and
Port Moresby.
Volga Dnepr Il-76-90VD RA-76950 as
VDA3142 arrived in Alice Springs
from Kuala Lumpur and Darwin

on January 25. On board the Il‑76
was a replacement engine for
Malaysian Airlines A330-323E
9M-MTM which had diverted
into Alice Springs on January 18.
The Il-76 departed Alice Springs
for Darwin and Kuala Lumpur on
January 27.

Air X Charter A340-313X 9H-BIG arrives in Perth
from Cape Town on February 1. keith anderson

MARCH 2018 101

Warbirds

Warbirds, classic aircraft,
museum and airshow news

WRITER: DAVE PROSSOR

Next issue Australian Aviation will profile the Pay family, including their warbird and
aerial firefighting activities. As a preview here is a beautiful image of Hawker Hurricane
VH-JFW recently returned to airworthiness by Pay’s Warbirds. mark jessop

TWO FOKKERS FOR HARS!

The HARS airliner collection
expands yet again! From New
Zealand HARS has obtained two
Fokker F27 Friendships previously
operated by Airwork Flight
Operations of Manukau. ZH-POH,
c/n 10680, was struck off the NZ
register on January 16 to surface
on the Australian register as
VH‑TQN on January 18. ZK-PAX,
c/n 10596, used the same dates
and became VH-EWH.
TQN is a former TAA marking
and will probably see the aircraft
wear TAA colours. VH-EWH
is a former East West Airlines
registration and so we will also
probably see this aircraft take up
East West markings. It is reported
that both aircraft will probably be
based at the Parkes Air Museum, a
division of HARS.
In other HARS news the
organisation’s Catalina, VH-PBZ,
was due to fly home in midFebruary. The Black Cat, dubbed
Felix, had suffered an engine issue

102 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

when about to do a demonstration
at the Rathmines Catalina Festival
in October. The big water bird
diverted to Maitland and had been
stuck there while a replacement
engine was fitted.
After engine runs on February 1
the Cat was scheduled to fly home
to Albion Park on February 3,
but this was delayed due to
unfavourable weather.
Readers can help keep Felix
in the air by making a donation
to HARS – https://hars.org.au/
donations/catalina/

EIGHTY YEARS YOUNG

A new Ryan has been imported,
a model ST-A, c/n 118, with the
registration VH-ROM reserved.
The machine was purchased
by Peter and Sarah Nelson of
Brisbane and has arrived at
Caboolture for assembly and to be
put on the Australian civil register.
The future VH-ROM was
built in 1936 and was used as
a trainer with the Ryan School

of Aeronautics at Lindberg
Field, California with serial #13
registered as NC14986. In later
years it became N1151 and then
N14986. It was bought by Alain
Grisay of Kemble in the UK,
where it was flown under its US
registration.

YAK RESURFACES

An oldie but a goodie! Yak‑11
VH‑YII was struck off the
Australian register a decade ago
on December 20 2007 as sold
overseas. After all this time it
has finally turned up, added to
the US register on October 23
2017 to Artemis Aviation Group,
Wilmington, Delaware as N525YK.
The real owner and base is
unknown at this time.
The Yak first came to Australia
from the Czech Republic in 1998,
acquired by David Saunders of
Western Warbirds, Perth as part
of a deal to send a former RAAF
CAC Sabre to Prague. Restoration
of the Yak began at Jandakot but

its condition was poor and instead
it was sold on as a project to Archie
Knappstein of Lenswood, SA to be
registered as VH-YII in November
1999. It is unclear if the aircraft
actually flew in Australia.
In other Yak news, Jim
Wickam’s Yak-9UM, VH-YIX,
c/n 0470409, has changed
hands. Previously based at
Tyabb, Victoria, the aircraft is
now hangared at Latrobe Valley,
Victoria. The change of owner is
recorded as January 22 to Keith
Astrella, Berwick, Victoria. It
was noted flying the circuit at
Latrobe Valley on February 2 with
many spectators on the ground
watching on.

WINJEEL RETURNS

CAC CA-25 Winjeel VH-NSJ
previously A85-404 with the
RAAF, has returned home to
Australia.
Built in 1955, after its RAAF
career the machine was exported
to New Zealand and became

Warbirds
ZK‑WJL with GC Aviation of
Taupo. Returning to Australia last
year it was put back on the register
on April 21 to Stephen Botwell of
Morayfield, Queensland. It made
its first flight back in Australia on
December 20 after being returned
to airworthiness by Aerotec at
Toowoomba.
The machine is in the unique
colour scheme of orange and white,
sometimes described as the Fanta
can scheme after the soft drink.
Also now at Toowoomba is
CAC CA-25 Winjeel VH-WIJ. It
has been acquired by the Zucolli
Aircraft Collection and arrived in
Toowoomba in late January.

Winjeel VH-NSJ is back in
Australia and back in the air.
lenn bayliss

MUSEUM NEWS

Former RAAF Lockheed AP-3C
Orion A9-756 is now taking pride
of place with the South Australian
Aviation Museum.
Dismantled and transported
by low loaders from Edinburgh
to Port Adelaide, the big aircraft
arrived at SAAM in December
and is now the pride and joy of the
museum, albeit with one wing on
and one wing off for display.
The Orion is now part of
the museum’s large and ever
expanding collection. Everything
is undercover and there are steam
and maritime museums nearby –
well worth visiting.
Moving further north to
Longreach and the Qantas
Founders Museum received a
big boost in December when
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby
Joyce announced that the Federal
Government had allocated
$11.3 million to cover the cost of
building what is called an airpark
roof. This covering will better
protect the museum’s aircraft and
provide shade for visitors, some
40,000 of whom passed through
its gates last year.
The Qantas Founders
Museum is home to a Boeing 747,
Boeing 707, DC-3, Catalina and
Lockheed Constellation. At present
the aircraft are on static external
display in the elements. While rain
is not a major issue the aircraft are
exposed to the sunshine.

WARBIRDS ON THE MOVE

North American AT-6D VH‑XNA
changed hands last year, with
its new owner Richard Mason
of Mildura, Victoria. The former
South African Air Force machine
was first registered in Australia in

May 1997. Since then it has been
sighted at Tyabb, Caloundra and
now Mildura – well travelled in
recent times but little flown.
Built in 1942 the trainer has a
constructor’s number of 88-9754,

the USAAF serial of 41-33274 and
the SAAF serial 7086.
A second Harvard is
Canadian‑built T-6 VH-JSZ, c/n
CCF-4-542, which was struck off
the register on January 9. It will

most likely return to the register in
due course.
Former Eastern Bloc trainer
Iskra TS-11 VH-ISK these days can
be seen at Lethbridge, Victoria.
Previously based at Essendon
Airport the red and white painted
Iskra has been re-engined with a
Rolls-Royce Viper Mk 22 engine.
First built in Poland in 1970 it has
serial 1H0608 and is registered
to Saario Holdings of South
Melbourne. It has not been sighted
in the air.
Taylor J-2 VH-FZL, c/n 1754,
had a change of owner to
Christopher Sharp of Prospect
East, SA on December 13, while
Aero L-39C VH-ITJ took up a new
owner on December 18 to Charles
Camilleri of Raglan, NSW.
A new entry on the register is
SNCAN Stampe SV-4B VH‑SGV.
With c/n 633 this 1947-built
aircraft is owned by Chris Harrison
of Heyfield, Victoria. It previously
held Canadian registration
C-FXME.
Finally, Wright Model A replica
VH‑SOF was struck off the register
on November 14. It was last
registered to Wright Bros Aircraft
Project Inc of Narromine, NSW.
The aircraft was built at
Narromine with limited flying
being conducted by the late Col
Pay. It will no doubt be a part
of the Narromine Air Museum
located on the airport.

Contact Dave: flyer02@optusnet.com.au
MARCH 2018 103

AIRPORTS
CAROLINE WILKIE
CEO – AAAA

Vital connections

Landing and parking fees are not unreasonable at regional airports

I
‘Regional
airports remain
complex
pieces of
infrastructure.’

was disappointed to read about
the Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association of Australia’s (AOPA)
call to scrap general aviation landing
and overnight parking fees at Wagga
Wagga recently (Daily Advertiser,
January 11 2018).
AOPA’s ludicrous claim that the
City of Wagga is imposing conditions
that discriminate against aircraft
owners lacked the professionalism
their members should expect of their
association.
Our regional airports not only
provide vital connections for their
local communities, but also create
opportunities for AOPA’s members to
access and enjoy the regions.
AOPA should therefore be standing
alongside local councils to support the
sustainable operation of their airports,
for the benefit of their members.
Instead, they chose an approach

that – quite simply – demonstrated
a lack of respect and understanding
for the hard work of our councils to
support the national aviation network.
Regional airports remain complex
pieces of infrastructure, and the
maintenance of runways, terminals and
associated facilities requires ongoing
investment.
Our councils invest significant funds
to maintain local airports and airstrips,
while ensuring the safety and security
of those that use them.
In fact, many councils must
supplement any income their
airport does generate to maintain
it, to ensure it continues to meet
community needs.
This can be very challenging, with
councils needing to balance limited
funds with a wide range of obligations
to their ratepayers.
So just as motorists pay fuel levies

and car registration fees, boat owners
pay for a mooring and caravan owners
pay for a spot at the caravan park,
aircraft owners should expect to pay to
land and park at a local airport.
This is a long-established, industrywide practice – and one that’s worked
well for our regions and the aviation
industry as a whole for many years.
To suggest private owners who have
the ability to purchase, maintain and
operate their own aircraft cannot afford
less than $10 per tonne to use airport
facilities is highly insensitive, and not
in the best interests of the aviation
community.
It’s time that we, as an industry,
work together to ensure we can
all enjoy access to regional airport
facilities throughout the country.
Any failure to do so represents a
choice to put the vested interests of a
few ahead of the many.

Safety benefits

CASA’s planned frequency use changes for low-level Class G

C

ASA has issued a notice of
proposed rule making with the
intent of changing the procedures
for radio frequency use in low
level airspace. The aim is to maximise
aircraft operating at low-level in Class
G airspace to be on the same frequency
and to make and receive broadcasts for
‘alerted see-and-avoid’.
To ensure safe and effective
implementation, CTAF areas would be
expanded. This will ensure that aircraft
conducting instrument approaches are
on the same frequency as aerodrome
traffic, prevent multiple frequency
changes during climb and descent,
and ensure transmissions at busy
aerodromes do not experience clutter
from the MULTICOM frequency.
This proposal has two elements
intended to be implemented together:
The first is to establish a
MULTICOM below 5,000ft. This
change would allow VFR and IFR
aircraft to monitor and broadcast on
the MULTICOM frequency of 126.7
MHz up to but not including 5,000ft

104 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

AMSL in Class G airspace where a
discrete frequency, such as a CTAF or
broadcast area, does not exist.
Secondly, CASA seeks to expand the
airspace volume of CTAFs. At noncontrolled aerodromes this change
would expand the volume of airspace
contained in the CTAF to a 20nm
radius laterally and up to, but not
including, 5,000ft vertically. For the
few aerodromes with an elevation of
3,000ft or higher, the vertical limits
would extend to 3,500ft AGL.
The RAAA supports CASA’s
proposal.
The proposal will ensure that
aircraft conducting instrument
approaches, or those high performance
RPT jet and turboprop aircraft using
the aerodrome, are on the same
frequency as aerodrome traffic. This
would have the desired effect of
eliminating multiple frequency changes
during climb and descent and ensure
transmissions at busy aerodromes
do not experience clutter from the
MULTICOM frequency.

However, the only way to ensure
safe and effective implementation
would be for all CTAF areas to be
expanded under the proposal. We
understand that at non-controlled
aerodromes this proposed change
would expand the volume of airspace
contained in the CTAF to a 20nm
mile radius laterally and up to, but not
including, 5,000ft AMSL vertically.
The RAAA also supports the
proposal of establishing MULTICOM
below 5,000ft, as this would allow
VFR and IFR aircraft to monitor
and broadcast on the MULTICOM
frequency in Class G airspace where a
discrete frequency, such as a CTAF or
broadcast area, does not exist.
These changes would provide
safety benefits for IFR and VFR
flights, provide additional protection
for passenger transport operations
and reflect the strong preference from
the aviation community for keeping
air traffic control transmissions
separate from general transmissions,
particularly at aerodromes.

FROM THE REGIONS
MIKE HIGGINS
CEO – RAAA

‘The RAAA
supports
CASA’s
proposal.’

FIRE & AG
PHIL HURST

AERIAL
A P P L I C ATI O N
A SSO CI ATI O N OF
A U STR A L I A LTD .

‘AAAA has
made real
inroads into
powerline
safety.’

New year, new agenda
2018 is looking good as a year

A

AAA’s outlook for the coming
year is unusually optimistic –
including on the regulatory front.
Recent media coverage has
started to shine a light on the pilot
shortage and short-term visa changes,
but it is yet to make the links between
those issues and the underpinning
causes of complexity and cost of
regulation and most importantly, the
difficulty the industry has in promoting
aviation careers when pilots have to
self-fund their expensive training.
Why would a young person – other
than the most committed and aviation
inspired – chose aviation as a career
when they can’t access HECS through
CASA-approved flying training
schools? This simple policy bias against
aviation does not stand up to scrutiny
from a fairness, economic or nationbuilding perspective.
The best policy change would
be to back the Australian industry

through a high-level task force looking
at optimising our aviation training
opportunities – both domestically and
internationally.
A critical starting point must be
an independent review of the CASR
Part 61/141/142 rule set with a view to
major reform in 2019, if not before.
CASA also has to provide workable
remedies to the CAO 48.1 debacle.
Building on the momentum of the last
quarter 2017, CASA could make a real
difference to safety by implementing
simpler rules and better access to
simple FRMS for general aviation.
AAAA has made real inroads into
powerline safety with the support
of Essential Energy in NSW, Ergon
Energy (now Energy Queensland),
QBE and CASA through its Powerline
Safety Program. A new Australian
Standard AS 3891 Part 2 is out for
public comment, turning that guidance
into a performance-based approach.

Network mapping is available in
NSW and Queensland. New higher
visibility cost-effective markers are now
available and trials on optimal colours
and spacing are now underway. This is
real safety innovation.
AAAA is the catalyst for bringing
this strong focus to aerial application
issues. However, many AAAA efforts
have positive implications for other
sectors – such as pushing CASA to
a true classification of operations
approach using sector risk profiles
for GA – enabling massive red tape
reduction and an improved focus on
meaningful safety initiatives.
Finally, the AAAA Convention and
Trade Show is set for May 30-31 at
Seaworld Resort at the Gold Coast.
Details are on the AAAA website.
2018 is looking good as a year of
positive outcomes. All we need is good
weather, good government and good
flying.

Much achieved, more to come

ROTOR TORQUE
PETER CROOK
PRESIDENT - AHIA

The AHIA is recognised for its proactivity

F

ew are aware of the history and
achievements of the Australian
Helicopter Industry Association
(AHIA).
The AHIA was incorporated in
November 2012 after many years of
the helicopter industry not having a
representative body. Since then there
have been many achievements, which
have assisted the industry, and the
AHIA has been recognised as one of
the most proactive associations in
negotiations for regulatory reform
Our current structure comprises:
president – Peter Crook; vice president
– Ray Cronin; secretary/treasurer –
Bridgette Hasting; director – Peter
Howe; CEO – Paul Tyrrell; IME
airwork and training – Myles Tomkins;
IME mustering – John Armstrong.
The AHIA also has many affiliations
and participates in a number of forums
and committees.
We are an affiliate member of the

Helicopter Association International
(HAI); a member of the International
Federation of Helicopter Associations
(IFHA); and a member of The
Australian Aviation Associations
Forum (TAAAF)
Committees and panels we
have participated in include the
CASA Director’s Aviation Safety
Advisory Panel, the Part 61 Solutions
Task Force, the Aviation Industry
Consultative Council, the General
Aviation Advisory Group, and the NSW
Rural Fire Service Aviation Industry
Reference Group.
But to ensure we represent all
sectors of the helicopter industry
efficiently and without prejudice,
please convey any concerns or
suggestions to CEO Paul Tyrrell at
ceo@austhia.com or 0438 114 372.
Become a member and help us help
you. Membership details are on our
new website at www.austhia.com.

ROTORTECH

In May 2017 AHIA entered into a
long-term sponsorship agreement
with Industry Defence and Security
Australia Limited (IDSAL), the
Conference and Events arm of
the convenors of the Australian
International Airshow, Avalon. This
agreement gives the AHIA financial
stability and the resources to better
represent the helicopter industry.
Consequently, our biennial
conference, Rotortech, is being
organised on our behalf by IDSAL and
is being held at Novotel Twin Waters
Resort on the Sunshine Coast over
May 24-26. Come and listen to our
keynote speaker, Chuck Aaron, the
former Red Bull helicopter aerobatic
pilot. All details are available at www.
rotortech.com.au.
We’ll see you there! But in the
meantime, have a safe and prosperous
2018!

‘Since then
there have
been many
achievements.’
MARCH 2018 105

CABIN PRESSURE
JOHN WALTON
@thatjohn

All economy class seats are not
the same, but it’s complex to
find out exactly how they differ.
john walton

‘Passengers
don’t
have the
information
they need
to make an
educated
choice.’
106 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Caveat viator

Traveller beware the increasingly fragmented airline experience

W

hat does an economy class
ticket buy you these days?
How about business class, or
premium economy?
Those are increasingly hard
questions to answer. More than ever,
airlines are blurring the lines between
the classes of services as they seek to
split their markets into segments.
Can a full-service airline capture
thrifty passengers with an “economy
minus” option, and squeeze a few extra
dollars for seats with more legroom?
Can a low-cost carrier pick off savvy
business travellers with a keenly
priced premium option, even if it’s not
today’s business standard?
These answers are easier: yes. On
the surface, that sounds great – more
choice for flyers. The problem is
that many passengers don’t have the
information they need to make an
educated choice, and most corporate
travellers (who often determine a
route’s success or failure) don’t have
travel policies flexible enough to
account for the differences.
As a concept, market segmentation
is nothing new, as shown by the
late 1970s creation of a “Club Class”
section by British Airways and the
first proper business class by Qantas,
as well as the 1992 addition of “Mid
Class” and “Economy Deluxe” by
Virgin Atlantic and the then EVA
Airways, respectively.
Indeed, airlines keep trying to
fill the gap between business and
economy, especially as the business
class passenger experience improves
and the economy experience, largely,
declines.
Airbus calls the gap between
economy and business the “comfort
canyon”, but the canyon isn’t just a

2D cross-section, where airline X’s
economy class reaches a certain level
of comfort and business reaches
another. Economy and business
classes vary significantly – even within
the same airline, let alone airline
groups and alliances.
Fly Qatar Airways, say, and you
might get some of the world’s most
spacious economy seats on the Airbus
A380 or A350, but seats 1-2 inches
narrower on the ten-abreast Boeing
777 or nine-abreast 787. (To make
matters even more confusing, Qatar
also operates some older 777s with a
spacious nine-abreast layout.)
Qantas passengers will find
something similar when moving
between the airline’s A380s with
their wide seats and the Boeing 787’s
markedly narrower ones. It’s the same
with many airlines flying into and out
of Australia.
On Qantas Group long-haul flights
alone, the range of seating options
between Jetstar’s most basic economy,
its bundles that include extra legroom
seats, and its premium economylite “business class”, plus Qantas’s
economy, premium economy, business
and remaining first class, means that
the airline offers seven basic flight
options before you even start really
playing around with flexibility or
ancillary revenues.
How much more should you pay for
a Jetstar Plus bundled economy fare
than a regular Qantas economy sale
ticket? How about Jetstar business
versus Qantas premium economy?
Part of the problem is that many
passengers’ needs are different, based
on their height, build, and what
they want inflight. Finding a way
to properly compare across airlines

remains difficult and often riddled
with inaccuracies.
Comparison websites don’t always
help either, not least because the
actions and inactions of airlines
and comparison websites create
confusion. Delta Air Lines’ use of the
fare code W, which is generally used
for international premium economy
— the class with recliner seats like
domestic Australian narrowbody
business class — is a good example.
Using the Google Flights search
engine for a premium economy return
flight from Sydney to Los Angeles,
Delta Air Lines returns a nonstop
premium economy price of A$1,657,
some thousand dollars less than Virgin
Australia’s premium economy, and
$2,800 less than Qantas’.
If you’re thinking that sounds
odd, since Delta only has premium
economy on its brand new Airbus
A350 aircraft, which don’t operate to
Sydney, you’re right, but Delta doesn’t
go out of its way to show it.
On clicking through to Delta’s
website to book, passengers are
presented with flights in “Delta
Comfort+”, Delta’s extra-legroom
economy product, which doesn’t
offer different seats, different service
concept, or different benefits including
additional luggage allowance, priority
checkin, extra frequent flyer points,
and so on.
Delta’s own website flight search
is clearer, but other flight search
and comparison websites gave
similarly questionable information
for “premium economy” searches
on Delta. Some of this is obviously
inexpert coding, but how many
passengers turn up having bought
what they thought is premium
economy to find that they really only
got a few inches of extra legroom?
Setting expectations is key to the
passenger experience. Airlines control
what fares they allow comparison
and flight search sites to use. They
also control their own websites, and
have the option to show interstitial
messages and images of exactly what
passengers coming from other sites
are buying.
In the age of fragmented passenger
experience, more clarity – and perhaps
more of a sense of responsibility – is
sorely needed.

RIGHT HAND SEAT
DAVE PROSSOR

The pilot-in-command should
take reasonable steps to
ensure that the aircraft carries
sufficient fuel for the proposed
flight. paul sadler

‘Fuel gauges
in light
aircraft are
only reliable
when they
read zero.’

Liquid gold

Managing fuel is critical to a safe flight

F

uel. The stuff that an aero engine
needs to keep turning to keep
you and your aircraft in the air.
The trouble is that both here in
Australia and in the US at least one
aircraft a week runs out of fuel in the
air, and those are only the ones that
the regulators get to hear about!
In recent times CASA has been
pushing pilots to dip tanks both before
and after flight in order to check the
fuel available and the fuel used, which
can then be matched with a recorded
fuel burn.
Remember that fuel gauges in light
aircraft are only reliable when they
read zero.
It’s commonly said that about the
only time you can have too much fuel
is when the aircraft is burning. In
reality a pilot simply has to plan to
have enough fuel on board to cover the
A to B flight plus start, taxi and climb,
a reserve and maybe additional fuel
for contingencies such as a diversion,
holding, a stronger headwind than
expected, a higher fuel burn than
expected (maybe an unleaned
engine!) and unforecast en route and
destination weather. Then there are
the unexpected. An aircraft slower
than planned for. This could include
something as simple as having a cowl
flap open or flying to a remote strip
and finding that a disabled aircraft is
in the middle of the single runway.
In years gone by the regulator
stipulated what reserves a pilot
had to carry. Then with a change of

regulations came the onus being put
on the pilot’s shoulder that they had
to calculate and carry enough fuel for
the flight. Most opted for keeping the
45 minutes reserve and the additional
15 per cent for commercial operations.
At the same time CASA put out the
Civil Aviation Advisory Publication,
now CAAP 234-1(1), Guidelines for
Aircraft Fuel Requirements. There is
still Regulation 234 that says the pilotin-command of an aircraft should take
reasonable steps to ensure that the
aircraft carries sufficient fuel and oil
for the proposed flight.
In recent times CASA has proposed
re-introducing a regulation stipulating
what fuel quantities a pilot should
carry. This no doubt comes about as
a result of aircraft repeatedly running
out of fuel in flight.
It is said that the current CAAP
is not law and is advisory material
only but one can see a Coroners Court
with the question being asked of
the pilot ‘Were you aware of CAAP
234? But you chose to ignore those
recommendations and as a result we
have a fatal fuel exhaustion accident!’

ALWAYS CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK
THAT YOU HAVE ADEQUATE FUEL FOR
THE FLIGHT
In the fuel usage game most flight
schools send their private pilot
trainees out with full fuel, if nothing
else this is to try to prevent a fuel
exhaustion event.
One catch here is that when that

PPL becomes a CPL and goes to work
for a commercial operator they will be
told to carry just enough fuel to meet
the basic mission requirements. The
rest of the available payload is then
available for the aircraft to carry more
paid-for widgets. This comes as quite
a shock to our PPL holder, now a new
CPL, as in the past they carried an
excess of fuel, if only to ensure their
own safety.
Then we have to look at the quality
of the fuel and the required uplift. As
we move into the era of more aircraft
using diesel or Jet A1 fuel we are
going to see more events caused by the
wrong brew being put into fuel tanks.
It has happened already.
The fuel tanker guys are good at
making sure that we get the right
fluid for our aircraft but the pilot has
to help. Specify avgas or Jet A1 when
ordering fuel and be present when the
aircraft is refuelled in order to check
both the type of fuel and the quantity.
Quantity. When refuelling it can be
a good move to be present to ensure
the correct amount goes into the
correct tanks. If you fly long enough
you will come across the situation like
where you want 50 litres. So then the
fuel guy puts 50 litres in each tank!
Poor communication and supervision.
There are three ways of
ascertaining the fuel quantity in the
tanks. A dip stick, gauges and fuel
records. A wooden dip stick is easier
to read than a metal stick. Gauges
are only accurate when they read
zero. Fuel records can be good if
meticulously recorded. Always use two
methods to check fuel levels.
Quality. One has to be super careful
with fuel quality and ensure that it
has no foreign matter such as water in
it. A pilot needs to get into the habit
of checking the drains before the first
flight of the day, after a refuel and
after a rain dump. Fuel caps can and
do allow water to seep into the fuel
tank. One can never be too careful
with regard to water in the fuel, be it
avgas or jet A1.
Safety first means that a pilot has to
ensure that he has fuel in the tanks all
the way to the engine shut down at the
destination.

Contact Dave: flyer02@optusnet.com.au
MARCH 2018 107

CONTRAILS
GEOFFREY THOMAS

Twenty years ago, there were
just 70 international flights a
week into Perth and now there
are almost 300. geoffrey thomas

‘Come the
24th of March
we will be
that gateway
into Europe.’
KEVIN BROWN

108 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Future proofing

Perth Airport on the front foot

I

n the late 1950s the former aviation
director for the US state of Ohio,
the late Norm Crabtree, uttered
the famous and oft-quoted words
that an “airport runway is the most
important main street in any town”.
For Western Australia’s economy,
which is an economic engine of
Australia, even in tough times, that
main street is indeed the runways –
and terminals – at Perth Airport.
And given the importance of
the airport to WA’s economic
development it is refreshing to see
positive signs that the airport wants to
be an enabler of growth.
For a number of years in the last
decade the airport was labelled as one
of the worst in Australia as un-forecast
growth caught it – and most of the
state’s planners – off guard.
It took five years to catch up and
management is now focused on
keeping well ahead of demand.
Perth Airport’s chief executive
Kevin Brown is refreshingly candid
about the problems and challenges.
“We know we’ve come a long way in
a short period of time but we’ve barely
started and there’s a heck of a lot more
to do. But we’re firmly committed to
do what is needed.”
And what is needed is to make
the airport future-proof – something
started by former chief executive Brad
Geatches.
While the average yearly growth
at the airport since 1960 is 8.44 per
cent – nothing about WA’s economy is
average.
There have been great highs of
25 per cent growth and deep lows of
minus 14 per cent, making planning a
difficult challenge.

On the radar now are a new
international pier, a second parallel
runway and the move of Qantas to the
eastern side of the airport.
All of these projects which are
worth $2.50 billion are expected to be
completed over the next seven to ten
years, subject to growth.
And automation will figure
proximately in those plans suggests
Brown.
“We are really excited about the
automation opportunities going
forward for this business,” Brown told
Contrails.
The airport is currently working
with its airline partners to develop the
facilities that passengers will expect
and will demand in years to come.
“We want to be ahead of the curve
in that and automation brings so
much opportunity.”
But Brown is not relying on
tumbling airfares and FIFO workers
to drive traffic.
“If Perth Airport fully realises its
potential then this state fully realises
its economic worth. Our focus is
not just on leisure, it’s business, it’s
the whole economic package with
all aspects of export which includes
education,” he said.
“We’ve got fantastic universities
that have world-wide credibility in
many fields whether it’s in exploration
and oil and gas or mining.”
“And that in itself is a fantastic
opportunity for further growth of
international students in our region.
“Not only do the students live here
but the friends and family come and
visit so every student is worth four
and a half seats a year which helps
underpin services.”

Brown also sees great potential
with tourism.
“If we look at just tourism in
itself, it’s one of the five pillars of the
Australian economy and it’s growing
three times faster than the national
economic average.”
“So, it is a really supercharged
element for the economy and one
that we’re very keen to work on with
tourism authorities.”
As part of that tourism push Brown
plans to make Perth Airport a global
hub.
“We have to make sure this great
state fully realises its potential not
just for the city but for the broader
economy and our focus is on making
Perth Airport a worldwide hub,” he
said.
“Come the 24th of March we will be
that gateway into Europe with direct
services to London which will be an
historic moment.
“We’re really excited to work with
Qantas to make that happen but we’re
equally as excited about the possibility
that India presents.
“India as a tourism market has
grown 15 per cent last year and we are
seeing more visitors coming to WA
and we would see so many more if we
have direct flights and that’s certainly
something we’re keen to do.”
China’s tourism potential is
massive, says Brown.
“Australia is woefully undercooked
when it comes to Chinese tourism and
if you overlay that with the percentage
that comes to WA and we’re barely off
the scale so there’s a heck of a lot of
opportunity.”
Certainly, international tourism is a
big growth story.
Twenty years ago, there were just
70 international flights a week into
Perth and now there are almost 300.
And Brown says in that same
timeframe overall passenger numbers
have grown from 4.5 million to just
under 14 million.
“That’s phenomenal growth but
our work is not done because we see
a potential for a further 10 million
passengers over the next 15 years.
“We need to make sure our facilities
are fit for purpose and ahead of the
curve and ready for those passengers.
Brown sums up thus: “Our
ambition is to be brave and really
encompass the future.”

ON TARGET
DR ALAN STEPHENS
WILLIAMS
FOUNDATION

Disrupting air supremacy

Emerging technologies threaten the West’s command of the air

A

‘That land
forces can
win control
of the air
should not be
surprising.’
An Israeli Air Force F-4
Phantom with three kill
markings. During the Yom
Kippur war the IAF sustained
heavy early losses. oren rozen

ir supremacy has been the
essential start-point of every
Western-led military campaign
from the end of World War 2.
The West’s politicians and generals
have been safe in assuming that their
armies and navies would be able to
operate free from enemy air attack, and
that their own air forces would exploit
the skies to apply overwhelming force,
gather information, rapidly resupply,
and so on.
The West’s model of air supremacy
has been founded on the classic “dogfighting” approach to aerial combat,
in which superior pilots equipped
with superior platforms, information,
weapons, and command and control
systems, have dominated their
enemies.
It seems possible, however, that
emerging strike technologies and the
spread of advanced ground-based air
defence (GBAD) systems could disrupt
that model.
Emerging strike technologies
include long-range threats, typified
by North Korea’s nuclear-armed
intercontinental missiles (whose
speed of development has caught
US analysts off guard); while shortrange threats are typified by swarms
of hundreds of drones, whose
inherent characteristics - cheap,
minimal infrastructure, ‘pop-up’ from
anywhere, sheer numbers, variety
of weapons, etc – will pose novel
challenges to a model based on pilots
who cost $10 million each to train
and who fly strike/fighters that cost
$100 million each to build.
Turning to the spread of advanced
GBAD, Russia reportedly is prepared
to export its S-400 ‘Triumf’ surface-

to-air missile system, with Turkey and
Saudi Arabia as potential customers;
while Israel may sell its anti-rocket
Iron Dome system to the Saudis.
(Talk about common enemies – Iran
and Hezbollah – making strange
bedfellows.)
Tactical innovation will be critical
in countering these disruptive threats.
Although Western fighter
pilots have shot down a handful of
unmanned aerial vehicles in the
Middle East, it is early days in the fight
against drones, and a great deal more
thinking on the subject is required.
GBAD systems, by contrast, have
been around for over a century,
ranging from the anti-aircraft batteries
of World War 1 to the S-400 in Syria
today. Some of the more interesting
tactical thinking within this domain
occurred during the October 1973 war
between Egypt and Syria, and Israel.
Arab air power had been utterly
crushed by the Israeli Air force during
the 1967 Six-Day War. Egyptian and
Syrian planners consequently decided
that in any future conflict they would
try to fight the IAF on their terms,
rather than the Israelis’. Specifically,
this meant avoiding air-to-air
engagements and instead relying on
GBAD.
In the interval between 1967 and
1973, the Egyptians constructed a
radar, missile and gun-based defensive
system along the Suez Canal-Cairo
axis, while the Syrians did the same
in the Golan Heights. Constructed
with Soviet help and incorporating
advanced SA-6 and -7 missiles and
rapid-firing ZSU-23-4 AAA, those
defensive barriers were as intense as
any in the world.

The war began on October 6 when
Egypt and Syria launched a sudden
attack against Israel, catching their
over-confident enemy off-guard.
Israeli commanders were shocked
when their previously dominant Air
Force found itself unprepared for the
quality and tactical disposition of the
Arabs’ GBAD. The IAF started the
war with 290 frontline F-4 and A-4
strike/fighters; within days, some
fifty had been shot down. It was an
unsustainable loss rate.
Unable to breach the GBAD,
the IAF was in serious trouble.
Unexpectedly, the breakthrough in
the critical battle to control the air
overhead the Suez Canal came not
from fighter pilots, but from tank
crews and infantry.
Prior to the war, Egypt’s generals
had (sensibly) concluded that their
ground forces should not move
beyond the protective umbrella of
their GBAD. However, excited by
early success, they decided to extend
their army’s advance. It was the worst
tactical decision of the war. Lacking
control of the air, the Egyptian Army
was exposed to the classic Israeli
combination of fast-moving armour,
infantry, and attack aircraft, and
rapidly lost the initiative.
On October 15, by-now charging
Israeli armoured formations and
paratroopers crossed the Suez Canal
into Egypt, where they destroyed
scores of SAM and AAA sites, thus
opening up a gap in the GBAD system
through which the IAF could operate
safely.
In other words, the Israeli Army
had established control of the air.
The notion that land forces can
win control of the air should not be
surprising. In World War 2, Allied
armies did precisely that as they
rolled up scores of Luftwaffe air bases
and air defence systems during their
march from France and the USSR into
Germany; while during the American
war in Vietnam, Viet Cong soldiers
(who never even had an air force)
regularly asserted local control of the
air for specific periods using heavy
machine guns and medium AAA.
The point to take away here is less
about October 1973, and more about
alternative thinking in the face of
disruptive threats.
MARCH 2018 109

THE HUMAN
FACTOR
BEN COOK

‘There is
only one real
mistake in
life: the one
you don’t
learn from.’

The human factor

Are you optimally prepared and focused?

I

’m delighted to be joining
Australian Aviation to offer
monthly insights into applied
human performance and human
behaviour. I’m your new human factor.
I will explore many issues including
how organisational culture can heavily
influence what we’re prepared to do
when no one is watching – regardless
of the policy and rules.
While safety management systems
play a role, my view is it’s now
less about safety and more about
the ability of an individual or an
organisation to uphold and maintain
high standards.
Achieving steady continuous
improvement over time is the ideal
outcome for any high performing
individual or team, helping to enhance
our professional standing so that we
can truly enjoy the dynamic world of
aviation.
My practical insights will help
make you ruthlessly professional!

WHAT ARE APPLIED HUMAN
FACTORS?

In simple terms, applied human
factors use contemporary behavioural
and sports science (not the academic
stuff – just the practical bits) to
optimise the relationship between
people, equipment, and the
environment or conditions in which
you operate. The people you work
with, as well as your loved ones,
all influence your behaviour and
wellbeing within a work environment.
The effective application of
human factors knowledge and skills
contributes to enhanced professional
standards. They challenge individuals
and teams to innovate by providing
new and enhanced skills to question

110 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

the status quo and seek better ways of
doing business. When human factors
strategies are tailored to provide
practical tools that make sense to you,
they deliver a better understanding
of the factors that allow you to
excel under pressure, and help you
understand why certain factors erode
your normal performance.
There is only one real mistake
in life: the one that you don’t learn
from to make permanent and positive
change (and avoid the process
repeating). And best practice is holistic
– it’s not only how you perform in the
aviation environment, it’s how you
apply the same techniques to take care
of close friendships and relationships.

WHY THE ONGOING FOCUS ON HUMAN
FACTORS?

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, serious
aviation incidents and accidents
occurred far too often and the
consequences were devastating:
families lost loved ones, and some
businesses were shut down due to a
loss of public confidence.
Yet today, more than 30 years
later, many aviation organisations are
considered highly reliable – they’re
ultra-safe with personnel capable of
handling, and recovering from, very
challenging situations that involve
many hazards, complex technologies
and demanding work environments.
One of the key disciplines that
has helped aviation achieve good
operational success is the application
of human factors. More recently,
other hazardous industries including
mining, oil and gas, and rail have
come on board, with some of their
human factors programs recognised as
best practice.
The reality is simple: if you enter
aviation as a career or as an exciting
hobby you will at some stage be
confronted with competing demands
under time pressure. The outcome
will be higher levels of stress and
often a requirement to make a critical
decision that will determine whether
you get back safely or expose yourself
(and others) to unnecessary risk or
a serious incident. In those big open
skies around you the world can change
quickly – are you optimally prepared
and focused?

READY TO ACHIEVE GREATER
SELF-AWARENESS?

Attentional control and focus in
a world of constant distractions
(smartphones, iPads, Facebook,
emails, LinkedIn, Snapchat,
Instagram…the list goes on) is
essential for developing specialist
teams that can act decisively.
A good understanding and
application of human factors (such
as error-producing conditions,
violation-producing conditions,
and high workload) is critical to
ensure personnel can maintain
adequate situational awareness with
consideration of their own limitations,
plus an ability to make accurate and
decisive decisions in time-constrained
environments.
The best individuals and teams
in all parts of our industry are often
not necessarily the most technically
proficient; rather they’re the people
who understand their own ‘human’
limitations: they have good selfawareness of their boundaries and they
respond prior to losing the big picture.
It doesn’t matter in which
sector you fly – for a hobby or as a
professional career – applied human
factors offer the key to a long-term,
successful and rewarding aviation
experience.

A CASE STUDY

My first feature article in the April
edition will further reflect on the Pel
Air ditching from a whole-of-system
perspective, considering the operator,
the regulator, and the investigators
that tried to make sense of what really
happened.
It and some follow-on articles will
include insights into culture, egos,
trust, decision-making, expectation
bias, fatigue risk management,
and systemic (organisational)
investigations.

Over the past 20 years, Ben has worked with
diverse sectors across aviation, including high
performance civil and military teams, regulators,
emergency medical support operations, high
and low capacity regular public transport, flying
training, and mum and dad operators doing their
best to make a small aviation business viable.
He is a former military transport pilot, flying
instructor and low-level aerobatics pilot.

FLIGHT LEVELS
A PILOT’S VIEW

‘The bell is
beginning to
toll for the
Queen of the
Skies.’

Delta is the latest airline to retire
the 747. rob finlayson

Ageing gracefully

The incredible legacy of the Boeing 747

O

ne by one, airlines around the
world are farewelling the Boeing
747 from their fleets. A giant
in its physical dimensions, the
size of its impact upon air travel can
hardly be measured. It didn’t merely
take aviation to the next step in 1969
when it first took to the sky, it made a
massive leap that changed our world.
The 747 was born of a time when
air travel was expanding at a great rate
and airport congestion was a growing
problem. Pan Am’s president, the
legendary Juan Trippe, sought out
Boeing to design an aircraft far greater
in size than the existing 707 and under
the guiding hand of the chief engineer,
Joe Sutter, the vision became a reality.
Across the decades the ‘Jumbo Jet’
has evolved from that first aircraft
into its latest form, the ‘Dash 8’. Along
the way it has been the stumpy, but
long-legged SP, a freighter, and the
immediately recognisable Air Force
One. NASA has used it to piggy-back
the Space Shuttle and serve as a
stratospheric observatory. It has been a
private jet for Royal Families, complete
with gold taps, and a fire-bomber
belching brightly coloured retardant.
It has worn every paint scheme
imaginable from Qantas’s Wunala
Dreaming to Iron Maiden’s skeletal
mascot and everything in between.
There are very few forms, physical
or aesthetic, that the 747 has not taken
and with that diversity its admiration
has reached across generations. Just as
there are those who admire cars, there
are those who hold aircraft in awe with

an almost emotional attachment to
their rivets and alloys. And the aircraft
does not necessarily have to be a giant
of the skies, as beauty most definitely
lies in the eye of the beholder.
Whether it an F/A-18 or a
Cessna 152, pilots often form an
attachment to aircraft that play a
significant part in their life. And so, it
is for those who have crewed the 747.
Models sit on their bookshelves or
framed photographs hang from walls.
Even so, that child-like passion can
sometimes fade, impacted by the dayto-day normality of operations. The
affection is no less, just lost amongst
the world’s other demands.
However, sometimes the strongest
reminder is generated by those who
have never held the control column or
advanced the thrust levers to TOGA
power. There is a veritable army
of passionate aviation enthusiasts
– avgeeks – and the passing of a
particular aircraft type results in an
outpouring of sentiment across the
internet and beyond.
Whether the relationship was
spawned sitting in Seat 47E or
perched at the airport perimeter
with camera in hand, it is a genuine
admiration of what an aircraft’s life
has achieved. Millions of lives have
been safely transported around
the globe in this marvel of modern
engineering.
While the most common
association is that of uniformed
pilots, so many people along the
way have contributed to an aircraft’s

history. From the original designers,
to the maintenance engineers, cabin
crew and myriad other roles, far too
many to mention. The sheet metal,
composites and rivets may have
formed the armour, but it was always
the people that gave the machine its
heart – its pulse.
When that final flight is announced,
the booking program is generally
inundated with those wishing to
take their seat in history. To ride the
skies one more time on a familiar
steed and to say farewell. There will
be commemorative covers, T-shirts,
coffee mugs and scale models, but
the memories will be the most prized
possession.
For the last time pilots will ink
the aircraft type into their log books,
along with the route and flight
time. It will look like any other of
thousands of entries but will mean
somewhat more. Some will make an
additional comment – “Final Flight’.
For many there will be no sentiment,
but sometimes it takes the passage
of time and the ability to reflect for
significance to find its place.
And when the final commercial
flight is done, she wends her way on
one final flight and parks for the final
time, virtually abandoned, in some
distant desert boneyard. Once proud
colours are blanked out and once
roaring engines are silenced in shrouds.
Row upon row of steeds that have
safely carried their millions, retire in
silence, awaiting the scrappers blade or
a rare chance at rebirth. If only those
now-lifeless flightdecks could share the
sights that they’d seen or whisper the
tales of a life well-lived, what stories
they could tell.
Ultimately, for the pilots,
engineers, cabin crew and avgeeks
alike, all good things must come to
an end. This time around the bell is
beginning to toll for the Queen of the
Skies – the Boeing 747. Its records
may never be rivalled, but then again,
this is aviation and who knows what
will occur over the next century. That
being said, even if they are able to
design warp drives and offer twohour low-cost hops to Mars, the 747
will still be able to hold its head high.
It didn’t merely change the face of
aviation, it changed faces all around
the world.
MARCH 2018 111

YESTERYEAR
ERIC ALLEN

A formation landing of A-4G
Skyhawks at an airshow at
HMAS Albatross, Nowra on
April 28 1974. eric allen

‘That was not
quite the end
for Australia’s
Skyhawks,
though.’
112 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

Heinemann’s hotrod

The A-4 Skyhawk joins Australia’s Fleet Air Arm

T

he Douglas A-4 Skyhawk
evolved from chief engineer Ed
Heinemann’s concerns at the
trend of increasingly heavier
combat aircraft with degraded
performance and increased cost. Held
in high affection by its pilots and
maintainers, the aircraft was given
several nicknames, such as Scooter
and Heinemann’s hotrod, which
reflected Ed Heinemann’s compact
design approach (most notably the
Skyhawk could fit on an aircraft
carrier lift without requiring folding
wings, but it could also carry the same
payload as a WW2 B-17 bomber).
The prototype XA4D-1 Skyhawk
had its maiden flight from Edwards
AFB, California on August 14 1954.
Production would continue until 1979,
with 2,960 Skyhawks delivered.
Australia was the first new-build
Skyhawk export customer, with
Minister for the Navy, Fred Chaney,
announcing on October 26 1965 that
10 Douglas A-4E Skyhawks would
be acquired for the RAN at a cost of
£9.2 million. At the same time an
order of 14 Grumman S-2 Trackers
was announced, with the two types
to replace the RAN’s de Havilland
Sea Venoms and Fairey Gannets,
respectively.
That first batch of eight A-4Gs and
two TA-4Gs, plus the S-2 Trackers,
were transported to Australia on
board HMAS Melbourne, loaded
onto a lighter at Jervis Bay on
November 21 1967, and transported by
road to Naval Air Station Nowra.
The RAN’s operational Skyhawk
unit, 805 Squadron (later VF805 when
the RAN adopted US Navy squadron
prefixes), was then commissioned at
Nowra on January 10 1968. Training
was the responsibility of 724 Squadron

(later VC724), which operated the
TA‑4G alongside first the Sea Venom
and Vampire and then the Macchi
MB‑326H.
Australia’s A-4G Skyhawk was
based on the USN’s A-4F but was
powered by the uprated 9,300lb Pratt
& Whitney J52-P-8A, could carry the
AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile,
and lacked the A-4F’s distinctive
‘hump’ and ability to launch guided
air-to-ground weapons – reflecting
their fleet air defence mission. The
dual-seat TA-4Gs, meanwhile, were
similar to the USN TA-4F.
Interestingly, only the A-4G could
operate from Melbourne, as the TA-4G
lacked the performance to successfully
complete a ‘bolter’ (a go-around after
failing to catch an arresting wire with
the tailhook on landing) from the
carrier’s small deck. (Melbourne was
a WW2 era ex-Royal Navy ‘light fleet
carrier’ which was significantly smaller
than its USN counterparts.)
A further order for 10 Douglas
A-4G Skyhawks, again eight A-4Gs
and two TA-4Gs, was announced by
Minister for Defence Malcolm Fraser
on March 10 1970.
That second batch, all ex-USN
A-4F/TA-4F aircraft brought up to
A-4G/TA-4G standard, arrived on
HMAS Sydney and were unloaded at
Jervis Bay on August 11 1971.
In the meantime, HMAS
Melbourne had undergone a major
refit at Garden Island, Sydney, which
was completed during February 1969.
The normal complement of four
Skyhawks on Melbourne was joined
by six Trackers and eight Westland
Wessexes, a mix that could be varied
with up to eight A-4Gs on board.
During 16 years of RAN Skyhawk
operations on HMAS Melbourne, the

aircraft participated in numerous
exercises with allied navies throughout
Pacific and Asian waters.
The demanding nature of their
operation saw a high attrition rate
with half of the Skyhawks, eight A-4Gs
and two TA-4Gs, lost in accidents. The
causes were varied, engine and other
mechanical failures, accidents during
carrier operations such as catapult
and arrestor wire failure, with one lost
over the side during a storm, and in a
collision.
The most spectacular recovery
occurred with N13-154910 off
Singapore on November 8 1973 when
the catapult failed and the aircraft
crashed into the sea. The pilot suffered
the harrowing experience of the ship
passing over his sinking aircraft. He
freed himself and was rescued.
Sadly two RAN pilots were lost in
other Skyhawk accidents.
The fate of the Skyhawk in RAN
service was intertwined with the
replacement of HMAS Melbourne.
Eventually, on March 14 1983
the newly-elected Hawke Labor
government announced that Melbourne
would be retired without replacement,
followed soon after by the May 3 1983
decision that RAN fixed-wing flying
would be phased out. Six Skyhawks
were to be withdrawn by June 30 that
year and with four remaining aircraft,
retained for low-level target towing, to
be withdrawn by June 30 1984.
That was not quite the end for
Australia’s Skyhawks, though. After
extensive negotiations, the sale to
New Zealand of 10 Skyhawks, eight
A-4Gs and two TA-4Gs plus spares
for $28.3 million was announced on
July 9 1984. In RNZAF use the aircraft
were upgraded to A-4K and TA-4K
‘Kahu’ standard.
From 1991 to 2001 two single-seat
and four dual-seat RNZAF Skyhawks
even returned to Nowra in an air
support role. (Sadly one pilot was lost
in an accident while practising for the
2001 Avalon Airshow.)
And even with the Skyhawk’s
2001 retirement from RNZAF
service, ex-RAN A-4Gs fly on to this
day – six of the eight A-4Ks sold to
Draken International, which provides
aggressor and target simulation
services to the US and other militaries,
are former Australian aircraft

ASIA WATCH
TOM BALLANTYNE

Vietnam Airlines has a number
of suitable aircraft types in its
fleet able to operate nonstop to
the US, including 11 Boeing 7879s (pictured) and eight Airbus
A350‑900s. rob finlayson

‘Vietnam
welcomed
nearly 13
million
foreign
visitors last
year.’

A final frontier

Nonstop flights between Vietnam and the US are on the horizon

T

here aren’t many country pairs
around the globe today that
don’t have direct non-stop flights
connecting them. Flying between
Australia and the UK is one of them
but that’s about to come to an end
this month (March) when Qantas
Airways launches its landmark Perth
to London Heathrow nonstop service
using the new Boeing 787-9 for the
17-hour flight.
So it might come as a surprise to
learn that another example is Vietnam
and the United States. Surprising
considering the history of the two
countries in war and peace and the
fact that after the Vietnam War ended
in the late 1970s there was a flood of
Vietnamese refugees heading over
the Pacific. By 1980, according to
census figures, there were 261,729
Vietnamese Americans. In the latest
census, for 2016, that figure had
reached close to 2.1 million. They are
the fourth-largest Asian American
ethnic group after Chinese Americans,
Indian Americans, and Filipino
Americans, and Vietnamese is the
seventh most-spoken language in the
US. Some 50 per cent of American
Vietnamese live in California and
Texas.
Yet if they want to visit the country
of their roots to see relatives, or their
relatives want to come see them, they
can’t do it on a nonstop flight. They
must fly from the US West Coast to
Vietnam through transit points in Asia
such as Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo,
Seoul, Shanghai and Beijing, with the
total time taken to travel being up

to 24 hours. Alternatively, for those
living on the US East Coast, they can
transit through Europe in countries
such as the UK, France and Germany.
A direct flight – the flying distance
from Ho Chi Minh City (HCM) to
Los Angeles is 7,100nm – would take
around 16 hours.
That’s about to change later this
year. The deputy director of the
Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam
(CAAV), Võ Huy Cuong, in January
announced national carrier Vietnam
Airlines (VNA) plans to launch
direct US services sometime in 2018,
probably from HCM to either San
Francisco or Los Angeles. The signing
of an air services agreement between
the two countries will also allow other
carriers to launch, with fast-growing
budget operator Vietjet already having
said publicly it is interested.
VNA is best positioned because
it already has suitable aircraft, with
11 Boeing 787-9s and eight Airbus
A350‑900s (with 16 more to come)
in its fleet. Also on order are eight
787‑10s which will start arriving
in 2019. But like the launch of any
new route, adding the US to VNA’s
network isn’t going to be easy.
As deputy director Cuong puts it:
“The competition is very fierce so the
Vietnamese airlines planning to fly
directly to the US must analyse and
evaluate the situation carefully.”
Saying the competition is fierce is
an understatement. For example, in
Japan major carriers Japan Airlines
and All Nippon Airways ply the onestop route. In Korea, Korean Air and

Asiana are both in the game. And they
will be offering good ticket deals to
keep their existing passengers.
All of these airlines are chasing
the custom of Vietnamese Americans
travelling to visit relatives or on
business. The US is the fourth largest
source of foreign visitors to Vietnam,
with more than 614,000 people
coming in 2017, up 11 per cent from
2016, according to Vietnam’s General
Statistics Office.
Vietnam welcomed nearly 13
million foreign visitors last year and
raked in nearly US$22.3 billion from
tourism. It hopes new air routes will
increase the number of visitors to
20 million in the next two years, when
tourism revenues will contribute
10 to 12 per cent to the country’s
GDP, compared with the current
seven per cent.
For airlines, it is a rapidly growing
market, with air traffic expanding at
similar rates seen in boom markets
such as China, Indonesia and India.
The growth is so significant, however,
that Vietnamese authorities are
struggling to cope. In January the
Vietnam Air Traffic Management
Corporation (VATM) submitted a
plan to the country’s Ministry of
Construction to build a new air traffic
control centre at HCM at a cost of
US$61.7 million. The existing 12-yearold area and approach control centre’s
technology and equipment will soon
be outdated and its infrastructure
is declining. By the end of last year,
VATM handled around 800,000
flights.
“Given the current growth rate, the
air traffic management output will
reach 1 million flights by 2020 and
1.8 million flights by 2030, double
a forecast we made in 2009,” said a
VATM official.
Along with the fast growth of
registered aircraft for navigation
services, VATM added that
demand for technology upgrades
as well as flight safety and security
enhancements are among the main
reasons for the group to upgrade
services. If the plan is approved, the
new facility will be built with loans
and the group’s capital.
Construction is scheduled for three
years, starting around the first quarter
of 2018.
MARCH 2018 113

PINSTRIPE
KIRSTY FERGUSON

Participants in an Air Force
Flight Camp, which is aimed at
encouraging girls and young
women to consider a flying
career. defence

‘Starting on
this career
path requires
grit, tenacity,
passion and,
more than
anything,
planning.’
114 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION

The sky is the limit

But it is better to get potential pilots interested early

A

few years back I was in
Botswana, about to embark
on a small charter flight to the
remote Makgadikagadi salt pans
when a young cheeky Aussie accent
from the direction of cockpit called
out, “Hey Kirst, I know who you are,
I’m heading back to Aus soon as I am
nearly at 1,500 hours and can apply to
the airlines, so I’ll be looking you up!”
This pilot had been flying in
Zambia, Nigeria and Botswana
building hours after gaining his CPL
in Australia. He was among 15 or so
Aussie and Kiwi pilots I had come
across during my month-long Africa
adventure hopping tourists between
luxury safari camps. What a great way
to kick off your flying career.
Depending upon the direction you
choose, a general aviation career can
take you from the extremes of the
Northern Territory, flying to remote
outback destinations to 100,000
hectare cattle stations mustering from
the air or even on-call for the Royal
Flying Doctors, offering a critical link
for remote patients to medical help.
An airline career may well see
you seated in the cockpit of the very
latest aircraft technology, the 787 or
A380, today’s leading widebody jets,
traversing the seas on ultra long-haul
flights across multiple time zones.
Often I hear from candidates
coming into the industry from
other careers such as engineers
or construction workers or flight
attendants who are now in their late
30s or early 40s. They wanted to fly

from a young age and all too often
were given the wrong information
at the outset. Quite often that
wrong information was, you are not
smart enough. Rubbish, academic
achievement or intellect alone will not
make you an excellent pilot.
Whatever path you choose,
becoming a pilot is one of the limited
number of careers where you can
combine intellect and hands-onaptitude.
By that I mean you must have the
ability to manage the maths, science
and physics elements of the training as
well as a love of getting your hands on
technology, something in the industry
we call ‘hands-on-flying’.
You will be physically in control of
this expensive piece of equipment and
have to guide it with every changeable
breath of wind and diversity of
terrain while sharing the skies with a
multitude of other aircraft whizzing
about.
Sounds exciting, and it can be.
Sounds challenging, and it will be!
Starting on this career path
requires grit, tenacity, passion and,
more than anything, planning.
Perhaps you are considering this
as a career, as a high school student,
now is the time to set in place the right
course selections to ensure you meet
the entry requirements for a career
pilot. That means as a minimum
the educational requirements you
need to have passed will be Year 12
or equivalent in English, advanced
maths, physics or chemistry.

If nobody tells you early enough
you might not make the right choices
during high school. You can take
bridging courses to attain them post
graduation but of course it is easier to
do them first time around.
Don’t know what to expect from
this career? Then I encourage you
to jump in a simulator, they are
available for hire in every state, and
get an initial feel for the big jets. Or
ask mum or dad for an introductory
flight in a single-engine Cessna,
perhaps for your birthday. You
will see first hand the technology,
planning, aptitude and responsibility
this job holds.
If it grips you at this point then this
career may well be for you.
So what are your options to become
a pilot? Well there are a variety of
ways to enter this career and I’ll list
the standard ones below:
»» Pilot cadetships: There are two
kinds of cadetships offered by both
regional and mainline airlines, the
ab initio cadetship for pilots with
little or no flying hours and the
advanced cadetship/traineeship for
pilots who have low flying hours,
usually under 1,000 (every airline
differs in this regard).
»» Australian Defence Force: The Air
Force, Army and Navy all offer pilot
roles, and operate 18 or 19 different
aircraft, both fixed-wing and rotary
from fast jets to helicopters.
»» Flying schools will take you through
PPL and CPL, after CPL you will
exit with a few options: become
an instructor; apply for airline
cadetships; or become a general
aviation pilot (scenic, charter,
survey, station pilot, crop duster,
skydive, medevac etc…)
For much more detail for anyone
considering this career path we
provide a flying students workbook.
While the perceived romance and
stature once associated with the role
of pilot has changed,, it remains a
career that, if committed to, offers just
about everything you can imagine to
those who are passionate enough to
pursue it.
Who’s ready to jump in a
simulator?
Why not… you might just have
what it takes.

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